


Perfect Imperfections

by Caprittarius_Rising



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: Angst and Humor, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-27
Updated: 2014-06-20
Packaged: 2018-01-26 19:42:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 23,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1700228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caprittarius_Rising/pseuds/Caprittarius_Rising
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after the end of 02.22. I started watching TMP only in the last few months and now I'm totally obsessed with Danny & Mindy. I haven't tackled fan fiction in a while, but it occurred to me that these two still have some things they'd probably have to talk about or rather that I think they should talk about. This is my take on what happens immediately after the ESB ending scene. I ran with the idea of Danny being mildly injured from getting hit by the cab. Not exactly sure where its going, but should be fun regardless!<br/>I'm definitely inspired by "All of Me" by John Legend, which might make an appearance in the story. Enjoy! (And gimme some feedback if you can ;)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. What Would I Do Without Your Smart Mouth

**Author's Note:**

> *Any original dialogue is not mine, obviously. If it were, I would have a big fat paycheck coming my way. (Sigh.)

He was so unspeakably happy and relieved to see her there, it slipped his mind to ask perhaps the most obvious questions. Certainly the many gawking passersby would have asked. They also would have expected others to do the same rather than choosing to _join_ the object of said gawking. Luckily, Danny was beyond tired of worrying about what other people thought in such matters. (Finally… His indifference was hard won; at one time, he worried about it too much and let it get in the way. Not anymore.)

Its not that it didn't occur to him, he just had better things to do. He thought of it, right before he instead stopped her lips with his own as she began to list the muse-inspired names she wanted for their _nine future daughter_ s. That, naturally, made it hard for him to ask, what with having his mouth against hers and what have you. For this he could hardly be faulted, though; the time since he last kissed her was simply too long and too much – he couldn't be held up by pesky if logical inquiries. (Not to mention, _nine_ daughters? Who does that anymore? It's not like they were trying to have their own reality show, for Pete's sake, although Mindy would love that. He might be Catholic but even he drew the line somewhere…)

Of course, while he was kissing her, his mind was too busy being wiped clean of anything but Mindy to worry about asking any questions at all. Not that there wasn't a fleeting thought here and there like just how ridiculously much he'd missed kissing her, how her lips were softer and she inexplicably tasted better than he remembered, how much he wanted to keep kissing her as often as possible for the rest of his life, especially when she did _that_ particular thing with her tongue and made _that_ particular sound. The one that made him want to get her naked, could easily make him hard in seconds if caught unawares… the one that was definitely more suited to the bedroom than the floor of the observation deck at the Empire State Building (much like kissing).

"You know, I'm serious about having nine daughters," she said against his mouth.

"Here we go, one boy– Anthony Francis."

"Anthony Francis?! What is he, gonna become the pope?"

"What!? That's offensive. Just because there's a Pope Francis right now doesn't mean anything. He'd go by 'Tony' anyway." Mindy huffed irritably, looking ready to launch into a lengthy diatribe no doubt concerning her views on old fashioned names and how he was clearly wrong; muse names and having nine daughters to bear those names was clearly the way to go. And really, he just wanted to get back to kissing her so he grabbed her arm, pulled it around his neck and started nuzzling her ear to distract her. "What do you say we fight this out later, Min?"

She nodded faintly, already preoccupied by his lips tickling her jaw. "Fine, but I'm going to win in the end, you should just accept it."

"Uh-huh, sure you are…" He whispered before licking at the corner of her mouth.

Added to the turn on of arguing with her was the heady sensation of her curves under his hands for the first time in what felt like ages. Earlier, he couldn't quite keep from running his hand beyond the plane of her hip as he pulled her closer, down and over her ass for a brief squeeze and up her side as their lips fumbled together eagerly. If he had his druthers, he'd have maneuvered one of them on top of the other, allowing gravity to do the work of pressing them together more intimately. As much as he wanted that, there was just enough blood left in his brain to remember that they were, unfortunately, still in public and getting arrested for indecency was probably not the best way to begin a newly mended relationship. Eventually this fact, the need to be alone with her, and the discomfort of the concrete beneath them filtered through his senses enough that he slowed the pace of their lips and drew away from her. Once he did, the questions he'd been holding back wanted to come all at once.

"Hey… Why _are_ you on the floor? You okay? And where are your shoes– and your coat?" He gazed down at her face, noting smugly the rather lust-dazed look in her eyes before she spoke.

"Well," she squeaked even higher than usual. She cleared her throat and swallowed, her hands making a motion in front of her like she was pushing down her libido. (All of this inevitably made him want to start kissing her again.) "The elevators were down when I got here, so I had to take the stairs. It was faster without my heels and they were pinching, so I ditched them. And then I got hot, so I took my coat off…" Her voice had gone from a tone more suited to giving a report to quiet embarrassment as he started chuckling. Of course that would happen to her the one time she actually was meeting the love of her life here. And make no mistake, he was that guy, the love of her life. All that was left was to convince her he was that guy.

"Wait, so... You walked up over 100 floors for me?" He teased softly in surprise, catching her hand that was still somewhat sandwiched between them. Given the vehemence of her refusal, he was inwardly thrilled she'd expended this amount of effort on his behalf. The emotion he'd tamped down earlier threatened to resurface and he covered with humor. "No wonder you're laying down." Her other hand swiped at him as he leaned away with a grin.

"Shut up!" She spat. "And yes I did that for you, you idiot! Not because you deserve it, that's for sure, but because… I don't know… I kind of – I – I love you, too." Danny exhaled in a silent laugh that was almost a cry, feeling a strange release of inner tension he didn't know he carried. Maybe she didn't need convincing after all.

"Yeah?" There it was again, that stubborn lump in his throat. "Yeah." Her eyes were shining now too. "Of course! Why else would I be here, Danny?"

He swallowed hard. "You… you 'kind of' love me?"

"Yes! Isn't it obvious? I mean, you know I didn't do it for the cardio," she said with an affectionate eye roll, "because I fired my personal trainer not long ago – he was too distracted by my incredible body," she drilled a finger into his shoulder, "Although, come to think of it, how much hotter would I be if I did that all the time? I bet I burned like a week's worth of calories. I would _definitely_ be able to pull Kiera Knightly. You might even have some competition, Danny."

He shook his head, a soft smile tugging his mouth as she spoke, marveling at how this peculiar habit of hers, so unbearably annoying to him in the beginning, could thoroughly charm him now. Once again, he spoke past a tightness in his throat that gave his voice a rough quality that had little to do with seduction.

"I don't think you could be any more beautiful than you are right now."

Mindy blinked up at him in awe, rendered speechless at this statement. Even in their brief time as a pseudo-couple, he'd never been prone to overtly romantic declarations. For that matter, he hadn't been prone to them as a part of any couple, pseudo or otherwise, except maybe during the early days of his marriage. But this? This fell so simply from his lips, he surprised even himself and hoped she wouldn't doubt for a moment how deeply he meant the words. Really, it was the understatement of the year. Maybe it was just because he loved her, but he really couldn't imagine her being any lovelier than with her hair spilled around her like a sultry cloud over the pavement, her cheeks flushed lightly from exertion, and her eyes shining with love and amusement, all softly lit by the night lights of the city. Even with an old cigarette butt and discarded pizza box near her head, she was radiant.

As he bent to kiss her again, his heart was so full he felt giddy. It was almost surreal to be in the midst of the long awaited culmination of all the carefully laid, screwed up, and rerouted plans that had brought them here. From the moment he sat next to her as she first read the "Was It You?" he'd posted, to hiding a smile behind his office door before encouraging everyone to trust her judgement, to the agony of hearing her use his own words against him through the bathroom door, only this time regarding _their_ relationship instead of hers with Cliff; from staring dejectedly at his laptop, too frozen with remorse to email her as 'Andy' to cancel their meeting, to taking care of her when she caught a cold waiting for him, to nearly coming clean, to wanting so badly to hold her hand or kiss her as they traipsed around the city together for weeks – as difficult as all of it had been, he would gladly repeat all of that and more to get to this place right here. A few short hours ago he'd been kicking himself in the depths of disappointment, terrified that he'd once again managed to ruined this. Now he was as close to ecstatic as he felt it was possible for him to be.

 _Hell, maybe this_ is _ecstasy_ , he thought as her hand slid back into his hair. _Yeah. That sounds about righ_ t. Who better to experience that with than the woman he loved? After all, he definitely wanted more than the temporary delights given say, in the throes of a mind-blowing orgasm… Although, he definitely wanted to experience that with her again. As soon as possible.

At the moment, though, she was warm and responsive in his arms, her swollen mouth synced with his as they made out like teenagers. All of this, he would gladly take in lieu of sex if need be. (Another reason he was clearly a goner when it came to her.) So many times he'd tried to remember the feel and taste of her kiss but his memory hadn't done it justice. Her lipstick had long worn off and he tasted the fruity sweet remnants of her favorite lip balm as he caught her lower lip and sucked it firmly, eliciting a gasp that did nothing to mitigate his arousal. Before he thought better of it he hummed into her mouth. "Mmmm. I missed you."

"You missed me? Danny, we see each other nearly everyday and we've been spending the majority of our free time together. I even saw you a few hours ago!" She was genuinely surprised by this admission. "I know but– it's not the same. That was before I knew you loved me too. I just– I dunno, I missed this. Kissing you. Holding you. Just being able to touch you the way I've wanted to." For emphasis, his hand slid down to her backside again, enjoying the way her eyelids fluttered when he did. He eyed the gap between the top buttons of her pink dotted blouse through which he could see the soft inner curve of her breast, and wished desperately they were alone so he could release it and kiss his way down her body.

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

He sighed as another group of tourists gaped at them before passing through the doors to the elevators. "Speaking of which, we should get out of here before this goes any further."

"Okay. We should. We've probably scandalized enough people for one night– and I'm getting cold. Oh God, how are we going to find my shoes, Danny? I can't take anymore stairs! My legs are spaghetti. And those are one of my favorite pairs of red heels."

" _One_ of them?" He laughed. "Do you even need them back?"

She gave him a purposefully blank look. "Are you being– are you trying to be funny? Because I see no humor in that."

"Right. Any idea what floor you were on?"

"I think it was around 75 or so… I remember a sign that had 'turn back' written on it which was pretty frightening," she recalled with a grimace. He helped her stand and kept one of her hands firmly in his own, lacing their fingers with a significant look, grateful he could do so now without freaking her out. Mindy reflexively pursed her lips at him, an action that drove him crazy and made him wish they hadn't gotten up.

As luck would have it, security was sensitive to their situation. Of course, the emphatic retelling of their 'epic love story' on the part of Mindy might have helped. Initially, Danny attempted to reign in her enthusiasm if only for the sake of brevity but after hearing her call him the future father of her beautiful mixed-race babies, he found himself just smiling like a fool as she spoke.

For months now, longer than he cared to admit really, he'd been consumed by a rather singular image: Mindy, in one of her trademark colorful outfits, with a belly rounded by pregnancy with his child. At first he'd been understandably terrified because the thought first popped into his mind long before he could even consciously acknowledge his attraction to her. At first, he wrote it off as a weird by-product of his profession; being surrounded by pregnant women and new babies gave a guy some odd mental images, sure; that, long hospital hours, cheap coffee, and sleeplessness created its own special kind of crazy thinking. In moments when his defenses were down, he was exhausted, or if she'd been particularly annoying that day, he would find himself idly wondering how their very different genetics would combine in a child. Then, of course, he would stop, mentally shake himself for being a moron, and chalk it up to all her ceaseless talk about how adorable her babies with Michael Fassbender would be. Not that he thought he was anything like that guy, but still.

Once, she'd told him to accept the fact that he was meant to be a father. Granted, she'd based this partially on his tendency to call a wallet a billfold, but he'd known it was more than that. Mindy innately supported him in what she considered to be an inevitability. She told him this despite the fact that he, in turn, had once made her feel she was running out of time to have children, back in the days before they were even remotely friendly. Yet what she took to be self-evident was something he was starting to worry would never happen, a thought that depressed the hell out of him.

Even though he knew logically men can have children well into their golden years, he never wanted to be a father who was too old to participate when he took his son to little league (or dance class) or his daughter to… well, dance class (or little league). He wanted to be a _present_ father, one that was annoying and involved in his kids' lives if only because he loved them too much not to be. That would be hard to do if he was sixty-five. He felt this way even before he'd made peace with is own father while simultaneously discovering he had a ten-year-old half-sister. As magnanimous as he was currently feeling toward the guy, he couldn't help but feel his dad was once again providing him with an example he very much did not want to follow. For years it had been that he didn't want to be a man who walked out on his family. Now, he was even more sure he didn't want to be his father's age with a daughter that young. (Even though he could begrudgingly admit that his father at least seemed to have finally figured out parenting. Little Dani seemed like a good kid.)

At some point, however, he realized Mindy was the only woman it was happening with. He would get to the end of another relationship and realize he hadn't ever imagined his potential progeny with the woman involved in more than maybe a vague sense. This was true even of Christina; they'd planned on having children once their careers were more settled, but he never really visualized it. It was always more of a nebulous, hazy _someday_ in his mind and he was thankful now she'd never gotten pregnant accidentally.

Once he admitted he was in love with Mindy, he gave in to the idea, indulged it even. It became common for him to spend a few extra moments looking at a newborn, trying to pick which specific features, or which baby looked the most like it could be theirs. It tended to happen more often with an infant of mixed race or darker skinned parentage, but sometimes just a dark head of hair or a child with a nose or long fingers like hers would cause his chest to tighten and he would wonder.

This desire was something he'd never experienced before. He heard once that people who are ambivalent about having kids tend to change their mind when they meet the right person – someone they want kids _with_. Now he understood what it meant to want to experience the wonder of it all with someone _because_ of that someone, to see the fruition of nine months in a tiny human with miniature versions of their features in a totally unique combination and to see that person grow over time. And he could see that with Mindy, _wanted_ that with her more than he expected to want anything ever again.

After ten minutes or so, security had more details about their lives than they probably knew what to do with or needed to hear, courtesy of one Mindy Lahiri. (This included the fact that not only had Danny 'ambushed' her on an airplane, made her knees weak from said ambush, he'd then proceeded to basically give her a swirly in the lavatory, only to break her heart not long after… this earned some very confused looks from the guard.) The two guards manning the observation deck relayed information via radio to the control room. (Unsurprisingly, it took them much less time to do this than it took her to tell the story initially.) After confirming their identities, it was determined Danny and Mindy were not, in fact, terrorists or ne'er-do-wells of the nefarious kind. (Mindy was asked, however, if she was the same woman who had necessitated a SWAT response based on certain Homeland Security trigger words she used under interrogation during an incident a few years ago… Mindy nearly admitted it was her until Danny intervened, saying loudly that they'd heard about it at Schulman and Associates and had _all_ had a good laugh at the _unknown_ woman's expense.)

At long last, they received approval for a solution to their predicament. As the floors between the lobby and the observation deck were generally made up of business offices, the elevator system was designed to limit access during off hours. Similarly, the doors that lead to these floors from the stairwell locked magnetically at a designated time. Security personnel had keys that would override both of these functions, making it possible to take the elevator closest to the stairs down to the floors where Mindy thought her belongings might be.

In the meantime, Danny had noticed the dull ache on his right side becoming steadily more intense. As her coat was located on the 72nd, and shoes on the 68th floor, he was beginning to grit his teeth a little against the pain, hiding his concern at how rapidly it was progressing. Somehow, in the midst of his frantic race to get to her, he'd forgotten about being hit by a cab on his way here. It had been a little over an hour since then and it just seemed to keep getting worse.

Mindy beamed at him as she reentered the elevator with the security guard, having found and slipped back into her red shoes. He smiled back, breathing deeply as his heart tripped again at the sight of her. As he inhaled, a sharp stab of pain lanced through his side, causing a hitch in his breath. Her brow furrowed and she stepped forward, raising a hand to his face. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm good." He smiled reassuringly, pressing a kiss to her palm.

"Me too." She moved beside him, bringing her arm up to slide around his waist. Her hand bumped near his belt and he hissed in pain.

"Danny, what is it?" She asked, pulling her arm back.

"I think the endorphins and adrenaline have worn off," he grunted.

"What? Adrenaline? What are you talking about?" Her eyes had gone wide in alarm.

"I kind of– Um." He paused, hesitant to ruin the good mood they were both still riding. "I got hit by a cab on my way here…" he muttered sheepishly.

"Wait– what?"

"I was running here from–"

"Running here? When? You ran here from the office?"

"No…"

"From where, then?"

"From– You know, the…" He gesticulated helplessly.

"No, I don't know. You mean you weren't waiting up there for me before you found me on the floor? Waiting _all night_ , like you said you would – _even if I said no_? God, Danny–"

"– I waited! I did! I would have waited all night but I– I kept... seeing that look you had when you said you had plans to not be the stupidest person in the world and I just – I was so sure you weren't gonna come."

"How long?" She asked flatly, crossing her arms.

"What?"

"How long _did_ you wait?" Her voice was dangerously low. He sighed.

"An hour…"

"Wha–" She screeched indignantly.

"–But then I ran into everyone from the office and they said you were headed here so I ran. I ran all the way here. And then on the way, there was this guy who opened his car door in front of me, I turned around and – bam!– I got… hit by a cab." His hands slapped together to represent the collision. Hers came up to stop him.

"You ran into everyone? Ran into them where?" Her eyes narrowed as she waited for his answer. Wincing, he blew out a second exasperated breath, reminding himself that she deserved an explanation and probably would have found out anyway.

"I realized I hadn't eaten since breakfast really so I was grabbing a slice when they all walked by... Can we get back to the part where I was hit by a cab?"

"A slice? A slice of p– Oh, Danny! Seriously? You left to get pizza?! I should have known– it was way too romantic for you! You said you'd wait all night!"

"I know, I know! I'm–I'm… I'm sorry, alright?" He scratched the back of his neck. "I wanted to do that, I would have done that for you. But I– I couldn't stand it, Min – waiting there, not knowing. I didn't know what to do..."

"Yeah. It sucks doesn't it?" She said pointedly. Her arms were crossed again and he knew they were no longer talking about tonight. He froze, searching for something to say. After a moment, her shoulders and face relaxed until she looked more tired than angry. For the thousandth time, he kicked himself for hurting her. "You should have said something sooner. Seriously," she sighed. "Don't think for a second that this gets you off the hook, because it doesn't. And if you die of complications from getting hit by a cab while you were running through the city trying to prove that you love me? I _will_ kill you."

The security guard was regarding them with raised eyebrows during the entire exchange. "You sure you two aren't already married? Sure sounds like you are," he muttered quietly. "Okay, sir… you seriously have no idea how long it's taken us to get to even this level of civility. Trust me, this is kindness. And probably ten years from now, we'll sound pretty much the same," she replied irritably, but he could tell she was fighting back a smile. She thanked the guard again as they passed the line of people still queueing in the lobby before pausing near the public restrooms. "Alright, Danny. Lets take a look…" She switched instantaneously to doctor mode, pulling his shirt from his waistband in a detached, clinical manner. Sure enough, a purple bruise was visible, spreading in a half-moon above the waist of his jeans. She clucked softly in concern.

"See how much I love you?" He tried, jumping as she palpated it gently. "Even getting hit by a car didn't stop me." She squinted at him in disbelief.

"Okay… Seems like internal bleeding might, though. It's a shame, too… I was going to take you home and do some things that would have blown your mind. But now? Guess all that sexual energy we were building will have to wait 'cause we are going to the hospital. No arguing." He nodded reluctantly, but perked up at the mention of things happening between them as they walked out.

"You were gonna blow _my_ mind? How do you know I wasn't gonna blow yours?" He quipped, grabbing her hand.

"Please, we both know I'm far more amazing in bed than you are," she smirked, eyebrows drawing up and together. "Oh, you think so?"

"I do."

"Maybe we should put that to the test. I mean, what sort of _things_ did you have in mind?" He murmured against her ear as he tugged her to fall back into him.

"Oh no, that is not happening, my friend."

"Wha-"

"Noooope."

"Not even a hint?" He whined. She smiled wickedly, walking ahead of him a few steps.

"Boy, what is it about you being sick or injured that makes you so horny? You were just as perverted when you had meningitis… 'Just graze it', I believe you said." She lowered her voice and over emphasized an accent to mimic him. "Is it the threat of death, Danny? Do you need sex to affirm your life for you?"

"No."

"Glad to hear it."

"No, I just need you."

She stopped, making him bump into her slightly. Before he could say anything more, she turned, her free hand slipping up his arm to the nape of his neck before she leaned into him, their mouths crashing hurriedly, her tongue darting immediately to caress his. He thought later it was like the best possible kind of ambush, to use her word; a full frontal sensory invasion by a woman who knew exactly how to turn him on.

Their joined hands released simultaneously and she gripped his arm, encouraging him to press himself against her. When he gripped her hips and did just that, she rolled them against him and did the same with her chest, effectively rubbing all of her body along his frame. Just when he was starting to hope she was going to forget about the hospital, she pulled away and nipped lightly at his chin. At the same time, her hand came up surreptitiously between them, grazing the front of his jeans with the back of her hand. It was her turn to pull away smugly now, leaving Danny looking like he'd just been hit over the head with a stupid stick. He stared at her like she'd grown another head, wondering where the hell _that_ had come from.

"Yep, it definitely would have been me blowing your mind. That was just a preview. And just so you know, it is really not fair for you to say something like that to me when I can't follow up on it and jump you because you might be dying," she whispered hotly. "Come on, we're getting a cab." 


	2. How Many Times Do I Have To Tell You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a long one. Bear with me.
> 
> *And leave comments! ...Please?

Upon arriving at the hospital, Mindy realized a part if her expected him to drop her hand, accustomed as she'd become to their previous state of secrecy or 'being cool' as Danny had so eloquently phrased it. They hadn't really talked about it in the cab. Actually, there'd been very little conversation. The time had been mostly taken up with making out and allowing their hands to rediscover one another while avoiding Danny's injury. An unspoken competition was waged that became all about seeing who would be more daring while they were still technically in public. He won when he pushed aside her vest and finally got to release that button, dipping his warm tongue down between her breasts while his thumbs brushed her nipples through the layers of material. (The cabbie, in true New York fashion, had to have seen what was going on but barely batted an eye. He'd probably seen worse.) Now, though, she couldn't help but wonder how he'd feel when faced with their relationship becoming public knowledge pretty much immediately after it restarted and in the hospital where they worked, no less.

Much to her delight, he merely tightened his grip as they walked through the doors and kissed her cheek before addressing the nurse at the desk. The woman must have recognized them at little because her eyebrows flew up toward her hairline as she handed Danny a clipboard. Mindy just grinned at her. _That's right. I am straight up dating Danny Castellano (again)! We're adorable, aren't we? The world must know! Tell your friends and neighbors_! Then she realized the button on her shirt was still undone and she was practically flashing the entire ER her lacy pink bra. (Damn it.)

Aside from holding a pen and balancing the clipboard, Danny's hand was rarely out of hers, like he needed to maintain contact or one of them would disintegrate. Even though his palm was slightly sweaty (this was Danny, after all) it didn't bother Mindy one bit. She hand a thing for Danny's hands and had admired them before she ever admired the man all that much. For a long time, she'd thought they were easily the most graceful thing about him. With long, tapered fingers and wide palms, his hands moved in a weirdly relaxed but elegant way that seemed very at odds with the often uptight, rude loudmouth they happened to be attached to.

In the few instances in which he'd touched her early on, shaking her hand when they first met, shoving her over on the couch in the doctor's lounge, holding her arms when Beverly broke her nose, she'd been surprised by the strength in his hands. Not because she didn't think he was strong as a person or as a man, but his hands moved with such an odd fluidity it was easy to expect a less than firm touch. It was one of the first things she actually liked about him, this physical sign of a sensitive side she would glimpse occasionally that he just couldn't quite hide behind the Staten Island tough-guy persona. That was her internal version of things, at least.

Then, of course, she'd seen Danny dance. It may not have been ballet, but his hands were _definitely_ not the only thing she found graceful about him after that.

Thinking about his dance for her at Christmas still made her smile, made her heart rate kick up, made her replay that perfect moment in her mind and curse her coworkers all over again for interrupting. When she'd hugged him and his arms came up to reciprocate, she was almost sure she wasn't alone in the overwhelming connection she felt with him then. In fact, she was pretty sure she and Danny would have kissed if Peter hadn't burst into the room demanding 'boob wine', followed by Jeremy with Danny's wrecked gingerbread house, both of them completely breaking the beautiful spell that had fallen around them. She'd tried to bring it back after they left, but he'd turned down her invitation to 'get some air'. He knew, of course, that this was code for the 'perfect first kiss' part of her man-trap but she was hoping he'd clue in to her willingness to adapt to a change in partner if the partner were amenable. In the end, she'd figured she must have been mistaken about the spark she'd felt between them.

Immediately thereafter, Cliff had happened, inevitably putting everything Danny-related firmly on the back burner. She was left with no time to think about her feelings toward him. As was her style, she threw herself into the new relationship with gusto, brushing aside any thoughts of Danny, his dance, or his weirdly graceful hands and body. Every now and then, even while dating Cliff, her brain would supply a particularly erotic dream about one or more of those things and she would startle herself awake only to lay there in total shock, staring into the dark with phantom sensations of Danny's hands being the ones to slide across her skin and make her sigh and moan. She wasn't sure how she felt about that either and couldn't afford to give herself a chance to decide since she was firmly in a relationship with someone else.

Once, she'd been snoozing in the doctors' lounge and must have been making noises in her sleep. The next thing she knew, she was being shaken awake by Danny who, in her dream, had just been grinning at her in the most deliciously carnal way while in the middle of a dare that involved him making her come as many times as he could using only his hands. After jumping up at the sight of him like she was on fire, she proceeded to stare at him like he had a giant spider glued to his face. He'd just rolled his eyes and told her she must have been failing at counting sheep or something when he came in because she was muttering numbers in a strange voice but had only gotten up to six. (A number that seemed highly improbable in reality… at least when pertaining to her dream and not sheep. Obviously, it was totally realistic to have six sheep.) Regardless, her eyes had widened, hoping she hadn't said anything else that might give away the true nature of her dream. Despite being mortified with embarrassment, she couldn't take her eyes off him, darting from his hands to his lips, to his eyes (making him irritably repeat, "What?– What?") before mumbling an unintelligible excuse and escaping to the locker room.

She couldn't have known that she'd soon get to experience something pretty close to that dream (although, let's face it, six was still a pretty unrealistic number when it comes to orgasms, hands or no hands). When he'd grabbed her on the plane, kissing her like the male lead in one of her romantic comedies, she'd finally felt what his hands were capable of, and it was way better than anything she imagined. He seemed to instinctively know how to touch her in a way that inflamed her desire to dizzying heights. She remembered vaguely thinking, Oh, yes… the butt grab is definitely his move, and boy did it work for her. No man had ever been so immediately enthusiastic about her ass. Not long after, she'd gotten to know the slight roughness of his palms from old callouses, the subtle dexterity of strength she'd felt before in his fingers as they mapped her body carefully and drew each heated thread of pleasure out of her with exquisite patience. Thinking of it now was enough to make her mouth dry as all the moisture in her body seemed to concentrate and throb between her legs.

"Hey," he murmured next to her, snapping her back to her surroundings. "What are you thinking of? You just got all dreamy eyed." Blushing, she smiled demurely and wondered if she should whisper something naughty in his ear or if she'd tortured him enough. Before she could decide, she was overtaken by a huge yawn out of nowhere, reminding her that it was now getting close to midnight. "No, no, don't do that– you'll get me started and we'll pass it back and forth! We still have _things_ to get to tonight." He fought it mightily, but couldn't quite keep from succumbing to a yawn through which he groaned in frustration, then glared at her.

"I'm sorry!" She managed sleepily. "Its been a physically and emotionally exhausting day, Danny. Which is mostly, no– _all_ your fault. Aren't you tired at all? It's way past your bedtime, old man." She leaned her head on his shoulder, valiantly suppressing another yawn.

"Eh, maybe a little."

"You just yawned," she pointed out.

He shrugged. "They're contagious. And my brain needed oxygen."

"Oh, is that what that was?" Lifting her head, she leveled a skeptical look at him through her lashes. He sighed gustily in disappointment like a kid who just got denied dessert. This effect was enhanced by the mussed state of his normally perfect hair as a lock fell directly in the middle of his forehead. Some of that she knew she was responsible for, remembering how her fingers ran up through his sideburns while his tongue teased her earlier. As if reading her mind, Danny's eyes darted down to the button she'd refastened.

"What about finishing what we started in the cab? That's not enough to keep you awake? I apparently wasn't doing something right." She reached a hand to push his hair back, noting the way even this small gesture made him inhale deeply and his eyes darken ever so slightly.

"No, actually, you were doing just fine– pretty sure my eyes were rolling back in my head. I think that cab driver's life will never be so exciting again. If you'd done it any better, he would have been paying us for the ride– Come to think of it, maybe if you had done it a little better, we could've gotten here for free!" This last made her start to snicker uncontrollably at the image filled her mind. His eyebrows drew together in a frown.

"Come on... I am injured so, you know, take is easy."

"That didn't seem to be affecting... anything."

"Anything?"

"You know what I mean… you're amazingly responsive for your age."

"My age?! I'm not that much older than y–" It was her turn to interrupt his sentence with a kiss.

After finishing the requisite paperwork, Danny didn't have to wait long before being assigned a bed and given some pain meds to keep him comfortable until he could be examined. One perk of being a doctor employed by a hospital was being prioritized for emergency care. It was a way of protecting an investment since happy, healthy doctors made for happier, healthier patients in general. And in a teaching hospital like theirs, where med students often became those doctors, it was a long-term investment that started early in their careers. In fact, a friend of theirs from residency was working trauma that evening.

Within minutes, the intake nurse had come around to get Danny's vitals and information. The nurse asked if he filed an accident report with the police, to which Danny responded that he didn't want to take the time because he was in a hurry. When asked what could possibly be more important than being hit by a car, Danny glanced up at her in a way that had heat spreading across her skin. While holding her gaze, he said he had to go meet someone really important at the top of the Empire State Building– the woman he was going to marry. Mindy nearly looked behind herself indignantly to see who he meant until she remembered he was probably talking about her. Then she gaped at him.

"Who are you and what have you done with Danny Castellano?" She demanded, drilling an accusing finger into his side after the nurse left.

"What? I said I wanted to go all in. What'd you think that meant?"

"So… this for real– I'm not being punk'd… I mean, is– is Ashton Kutcher waiting around the corner to pop out at me and tell me this is all a setup?"

"Okay, I don't know who that is… but this," he lifted their hands and pressed his lips to their entwined fingers, "is real. I told you that." His eyes were so earnest it made her light headed. "Or– I tried to tell you that." She shook her head rapidly, dismissing the last statement.

"But… You're sure you only got hit by a cab? You're not feeling feverish? There wasn't some body-snatching incident I should be aware of?" Danny regarded her strangely for a moment, then shrugged again in an annoyingly self-satisfied way, amused by her reaction.

Soon afterward he was back to being himself, grumbling about being asked to don a hospital gown and griping about the pain medication, saying it was one that always made him loopier than several others he felt were equally therapeutic options and he probably could just take an over the counter anyway.

"Wow, Danny," Mindy joked lightly. "Would you like me to get the nurse back here so you can request a different one? Or tell him you've decided to be a manly man and go without narcotics?" Smiling at his grouchiness, she was glad to see him acting pretty much the way she'd expect. "Doctors really are awful patients."

"Hey– remember, I have more experience taking care of you at this point than you do taking care of me. You weren't a whole lot better," he teased, making a huge show of swallowing the pill, even opening his mouth and lifting his tongue to prove he'd taken it.

"Um, I was like the perfect patient. You barely had to do anything."

"You complained because the chicken noodle soup I made you had too many vegetables in it. You said it was too healthy to be comfort food."

"It's supposed to be chicken and noodles, Danny! Not chicken, noodles and carrots, or chicken, noodles and celery! If it has to have vegetables in it, they should be so small they can't be seen, okay– otherwise it's false advertising."

He changed into the gown as Mindy held the curtains closed after shoving him inside when he suggested she help undress him with a crooked grin. Actually, she was strongly tempted to do so, especially after what he said about her being the woman he was going to marry. _But we have plenty of time for sex– probably as long as we both shall live_ , Mindy thought whimsically, paraphrasing one of her favorite lines from "You've Got Mail".

"No, you just said that out loud." Danny's voice came from right next to her on the other side of the curtain, making her jump. "You're narrating again." She could tell he was smiling and wanted to punch him.

"Oh… Damn it."

"No, I like it. Question though, if your gonna keep going– do I need to be present for the part where you map out our lives in an overly romantic and unrealistic way? I mean, it's not like I'll get much say anyway." Mindy snapped open the curtain in mock outrage. If possible, he looked even more smug and amused with his stupid kissable lips and stupid muscley arms crossed over his chest as he lay back on the bed. And how, exactly, was he making a hospital gown look sexy?

"Good thing I was done changing– Hey!" The clothing he'd removed and folded neatly at the end of the bed had become a weapon in Mindy's hands as she snatched up his jacket and hit him with it lightly. "Injured person here!"

"That was for making fun of my narrating, which you know you love–"

"–I _said_ I liked it–"

"–And that," she smacked him again, "is for once again insinuating that I talk too much–"

"–Sorry, but that you'll just have to get used to," he interjected, stealing the jacket out of her hands.

"–And that," she reached out and pinched him instead, making him squirm away, "is for continuing to pretend you're not a romantic even though you totally are. Did you or did you not run across the city for me?"

"Well–"

"You did. Of course it was only after you left that you ran across the city, despite saying you'd wait all night… which makes you an _idiot_ and a _jerk_ –"

"Min–"

"–But a _hopeless romanti_ c nonetheless, so don't pretend you don't want to be there when I talk about planning our lives or whatever. Because you _do_."

"I–"

"No, you don't get to argue with that."

He sighed. "…Okay."

"…Wait, you're… _not_ going to argue with that?"

"No."

"Oh… Good. Then I'm sorry I hit you… and pinched you. Have the drugs kicked in yet?"

"Nah, not yet. I need to eat something though or it'll irritate my stomach."

"Well, I'm glad you took them. That bruise looks nasty."

"I just didn't want to be impaired when we get to those things we talked about." He clicked his tongue, letting his eyes travel up and down her body suggestively before winking in an exaggerated manner.

"Okay, that was lame. And you might as well just start saying sex, because no one's going to believe you're talking about anything else after that," she complained, fighting not to grin. He was doing that crooked smiling thing again and it had her pulse skittering out of control. "I am forced to repeat that sex with me would kill you in this condition and probably explode your heart monitor."

"I'm not on a heart monitor." Warmth suffused her stomach at the low, husky tone of his voice.

"Whatever." She narrowed her eyes, stepping closer even though she knew she shouldn't. "The point still stands."

"I was fine in the cab– Come here." He crooked a finger at her and lifted his chin. She thought about letting him sweat it, but knew it was useless. Faintly, she wondered if she'd always give in when Danny so much as crooked his finger and was afraid the answer was yes, not that he would ever hear that from her.

Feeling utterly adrift, she shook her head at them both, then closed the distance to cover his lips with hers. Their kiss this time was languid and unhurried but every bit as emotionally intense as it had been in the cab. It reminded her of the way they kissed before they ever had sex– slow and sensual like he was a low burning flame consuming her piece by piece. Each discovery felt like the first and held the promise of all they had yet to explore. Every sense was tuned exclusively to him, from the friction of lips to the roughness of his stubble to the glorious, wet slide of tongues to the scent of his skin and sound of their trembling breath so vital and close. It amazed her how lost she could still get in the sensations created by his mouth. With anyone else, she grew bored after roughly ten minutes and found a way to move things forward. Not with him.

Danny was different. Danny she could kiss for hours.

The world around her faded from consciousness as her focus narrowed to his mouth and the barely audible groan he released when she used her teeth in a gentle bite before drawing his bottom lip between her own indulgently. It was a sound she never tired of hearing; it was helpless, needy, and she loved knowing she could do that to him. Even with the rush of that power, she needed the anchor of one hand resting lightly on his chest, feeling the warmth of his body through the soft cotton, her fingertips tracing the side of his throat where his pulse raced by. All sense of time disappeared as his fingers dug hard into her hip, then slid up her waist to skim along the underside of her breasts. Head swimming, she was starting to rethink the necessity and wisdom of her insistence on coming here when the curtain drew back and a deep voice spoke.

"Whoa."

They broke apart guiltily to see Glenn Walters standing there holding Danny's chart.

Glenn had started his residency the same year as Mindy and was on several rotations with her. She had briefly crushed on the tall black man before determining he was more brother than boyfriend material to her. He had a great sense of humor and such an easy-going, relaxed nature that everyone had been surprised when he excelled under the demanding environment of the emergency room and trauma wards. With only a mild look of surprise, he nodded at his patient and the woman who'd so recently been wrapped around him.

"Danny, Mindy, good to see you as always." They both muttered sheepish hellos. Glenn propped the chart on the end of the bed, then wagged a finger between the two of them. "It's really none of my business, but… that's new, right?" Mindy cleared her throat as Danny's mouth fell open, both unsure what to say. Then both began speaking at once.

"It's– well, it sort of – it's new but it's – I mean," she started.

"–You could say its new, although we kind of– um," he stuttered. Glenn held up a hand, cutting them off.

"Alright, alright, take a breath," he advised, laughing. "It's not a big deal, I was just curious. Good for you, though. I mean, we all thought maybe you two had a thing back in the day, the way you'd argue with each other. We figured there had to be something there– I mean, senior resident arguing with a first year to the point of ignoring everyone else, sparks flying… it was like watching a tennis match– It was like when those doctors on 'House' argued with each other at work to convince everyone they were no longer in a relationship or something, you know?" Mindy coughed to hide her surprise, wondering why everyone but the two of them were able to see it so long ago. _First Josh, then Amy, now Glenn? Who else? I mean, really! Why did it take us so freaking long to see this?!_

Danny seemed just as stunned by this information but was smiling his weird pod-person smile and staring off distractedly.

"Anyway…" Glenn blew right past the awkward silence and brought them back to the present as he looked at the chart again. "Hit by cab. Slightly better than falling down a manhole, I guess. At least there was no embarrassing ambulance ride or news story this time. The lack of accident report and the note, 'patient said he had to go meet his future wife at the Empire State Building' make a hell of a lot more sense now, too." He winked at Mindy. "You want to give us a second?" She acquiesced quietly, feeling unaccountably shy as she squeezed Danny's shoulder before stepping away from them, reeling from Glenn's statement.

She meandered distractedly to the waiting area and used the coffee machine to get some much needed caffeine, continuing to stand near the drinks station as she warily assessed the empty chair situation. It wasn't promising; at the moment, she did not finding the idea of sitting too near the sick and/or injured terribly appealing. This time of night, the proverbial shit usually hit the fan down here as people who had gotten off work hours ago had plenty of time now to get drunk, begin arguments, or plot crimes to commit under cover of darkness. Also, it was Friday night, which usually added to the crazy. Also, she was pretty sure if she sat down she would not want to get back up. The longer she was away from Danny, the more she became aware of just how weary she felt. Maybe I will disintegrate without him, she mused. Her eyelids felt heavy and her legs were starting to feel sore from the 104 story climb she'd taken. In the morning she would probably feel like hell. Then she and Danny could be in pain together and take turns being the patient.  _Or take turns playing doctor_.

Suddenly, it occurred to her that she hadn't checked her phone in well over an hour and a half. It had to be some kind of record; normally, the nagging feeling of being cut off from the outside world without her ever-present internet connection drove her to distraction. Clearly, Danny was a bad influence in this area, what with his old fashioned, 'your cell phone doesn't need to be glued to your hand' attitude. (That and his distractingly sexy self.) Usually, only lengthy medical procedures could keep her out of the loop this long. She pulled it out of her purse to find a slew of texts from her coworkers wanting to know what happened. As she scrolled through them, she responded to them in her mind.

**Morgan**

\- OMG. I can't stand it! Did he find you?! _(Oh Morgan, you're a weirdo.)_

\- Please, Dr. L, tell me he found you… _(Yup, he found me alright.)_

\- Hello?! _(Chuh… rude.)_

\- Really? After everything I've done for you, you ignore me! You two better be having sex right now. _(Boy, don't I wish.)_

\- Hey, Dr. L, I'm not really mad, I just would really like to know if my best friend and former roommate managed to hook up with the man of her dreams tonight, that's all. No big deal. _(Ugh. Guilt trip much?)_

**BrOB-GYN (Peter)**

\- Hey, Danny stopped to get pizza like the total chode that he is… don't let him get a pass on that! But he's on his way now, FYI _(I really wish I'd seen that sooner!... Do I wanna know what a chode is? Guessing no.)_

\- Well trashy skank, hope you and Danny are bumpin them uglies right now! Bow chicka wow-wow. Git it gurl. Git it aaalll night long… And you're welcome, BTW. _(How does he manage sound like a frat boy even in texts? And how did he change his name in my phone?!)_

**Jeremy**

\- I hope you two have finally mended things. It's taken bloody long enough. _(Pretty sure you weren't even aware of our relationship until today, so…)_

\- Incidentally, if you do decide to embark on a relationship I will need both of you to sign another waiver saying you release the practice of liability in the event that things should not work out and so forth. _(Gee… Thanks for the vote of confidence!)_

\- Just a friendly reminder. Hope it doesn't come to that of course. Best of luck. Ta. _(That's a little better… Does that man really have a waiver for everything or is he making it up as he goes along?)_

Rolling her eyes, she seriously considered letting them all wait, but thought better of it. They _had_ been nice enough to take time out of their respective days to convince her Danny was in love with her and encourage her to meet him. (And then to encourage him to go find her when he was being ridiculous and hungry… stupid, stupid Danny.) She supposed the least she could do is update them all on the latest developments. Also, they would find out all the details eventually even if she didn't want them to know.

Opening a new group message, she typed out a short paragraph saying they had found each other ( _at last_!) and were together but Danny had gotten hit by a cab after he saw them so they were back at the hospital getting him checked out. She was about to hit 'send' when it occurred to her that since the majority of the office worked at the hospital concurrently, telling them about Danny's injury might cause all of them to descend en masse, thereby making their night that much longer and ( _more importantly_ ) delaying any possibility of more hot, sexy making out, touching, or even steamy looks for that matter. With this in mind, she removed the part about the hospital and said they were watching a movie at his place and hit send, determined to do her best to ignore any responses it garnered.

She finished her coffee and got a refill, mixing one for Danny as she idly scrolled through her Twitter feed. Another huge yawn had overtaken her when new message popped up on her screen.

**Danny**

\- Where's you run off to? Gotta hot date I don know about? Get your curvy ask back her. I'm horny for your kisses. ;)

"Wow. Danny Castellano sent me a winky face. I can officially die happy." She snorted in amusement, wondering at the spelling errors before responding.

**Mindy**

\- Who is this? This is Mindy. :P  

Grabbing the coffee cups, she traversed the hundred or so feet back to his bed and pulled back the curtain. Danny looked up at her, his eyes somewhat unfocused as he waved his phone.

"Cute. You reused my line."

"It's only fair– you reused mine. And sent me a winky face, you perv." He gave her a big dopey smile. "Jeez, you weren't kidding. That stuff _does_ make you loopy."

"Yeah, I told you. Empty stomach's not helping."

"Uh-huh. What did Glenn have to say?"

"Probably just bruising, but he wants an X-Ray to be sure."

"Oh good. Looks like I won't have to kill you after all," she observed sagely.

"Well if you kill me now, no sex for you."

"What are you talking about? I could get another guy like that." She snapped her fingers.

"Ah, but then I'd just have to haunt you like a sex crazed poltergeist and make sure you never got laid again." Blinking slowly, he pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes. "Wow, I'm feeling it now." His voice was starting to sound a bit muzzy and he seemed on the verge of falling asleep. It was actually crazy adorable and reminded her way too much of how he sounded during sex. "That text was off, wasn't it?"

"Which part? The part about my curvy _ask_? Remember how I told you about autocorrect?" He chuckled throatily, a sound so sexy she felt her toes trying to curl in her shoes. To offset this, she stepped closer and kissed him chastely.

"Mmm… I remember. You taste like coffee. Where's mine?" He spoke with slightly exaggerated slowness and a very slight slur like words had suddenly become hard to pronounce. She wondered if she could get away with taking video of this for blackmail purposes.

"Here. Couldn't find any tonic water." His own phone dropped forgotten into his lap as he took the cup from her, smiling in that crooked way of his.

"This'll work. Hey, it's just the way I like it," he said after a sip, like it was the most impressive thing ever. "Black with just a little sugar because cr–"

"–Cream is for sissies," she finished for him. "I know. See? I do listen to some of the stuff you say." Sipping it slowly, he gazed at her fuzzily over the rim before setting it aside.

"You still look nice, Min. Even after climbing all those stairs." His fingers reached out to toy with the front edge of her coat. Her eyebrows quirked up.

"That's me. 104 floors and still flawless. I woke up like this," she drawled casually a la Beyoncé even as his words made her heart stutter in her chest.

"You're really pretty in pink."

"Hey, nice '80's movie reference!"

"Huh?"

"…Never mind." She bit back a smirk, pursing her lips.

"Aw, don't do that," he frowned drowsily.

"What? First I can't yawn, now I can't smile?"

"No, it's not that– it's– the thing, the thing you do with your lips. Man, it drives me crazy when you do that." His head rolled back and forth on the pillow in frustration.

"What thing I do with my lips?" Obviously, he was losing it.

"Oh God, you don't even know?" Staring at him expectantly, Mindy's chin jutted forward, hands spread, completely at a loss. "You do this – its like a smile, but you purse your lips just a little and it makes wanna fff… Oooh, I just– I want you so much right now."

"Danny!" Thank goodness he was too medicated to speak at normal volume or the whole hospital would be treated to the lascivious, depraved rantings of her boyfriend. _Wait– Boyfriend?_ she thought vaguely. _Somehow that doesn't seem adequate_.

"What?"

"I know what word you were about to use, Danny!"

"I can't help that it's true! Hey… you were the last one, you know."

"Last one? Last one what?" Surely, he didn't mean… well, he could mean anything. Last woman, last hope, last … lover. _Those are pretty much all the same, dummy_ , she chastised silently.

"Remember when you asked me if I'd really been with every race of woman? Well, I have now," he declared smugly, a slow, devilish grin spreading across his face. "You were the last one."

"What?!" She pushed his arm away in mock outrage before trying to pinch every inch of him she could reach. Grinning, he thwarted her efforts by grabbing her wrists and holding her hands away from his body, the reminder of his strength turning her on even as she struggled to inflict pain upon his person. "And here I thought you were being romantic again! Is that the only reason we got together? So you could check me off some kind of sexual bucket list?!" If there had been something besides his clothing nearby, something like a throw pillow (or a brick) she would have begun beating him with it and hard, injury be damned. "Are you gonna write a book now? _How I Slept With Every Race of Woman and Some of Them Twice_? And just because we're a sixth of the world's population does not mean all Indians are one race, Danny. That's very offensive!"

"Says the woman who's constantly referring to herself as a 'woman of color'."

"Well, it's different coming from me because I _am_ a–"

"–A woman of color. Right." His voice and his eyes had softened as he gazed at her with the smallest of smiles curving his lips. The look was one he'd given her a lot lately, one she didn't recognize for what it was until now. It was the same look he gave her when he was helping her write that letter to Cliff, when they were first together, when she asked him to stay with her when she was sick, and when they'd spent time rediscovering the city they both loved together. It was a look that kindled a radiating warmth in her chest and fluttering butterflies in her stomach.

One instance in particular came to mind. They'd been watching the sun set over the harbor after spending the whole day together about two weeks ago. She'd remarked on how she liked watching the light glint off the hundreds of thousands of windows across the city skyline; it made her think about all the different kinds of people (mainly the famous kind) behind those windows who could all be watching the same sunset at the same time as her. When she finished speaking, she'd turned to find Danny looking at her with an expression very like the one he wore now. Had it been anyone else, she'd have thought he wanted to kiss her, but this was Danny. Danny, who broke her heart. Danny, who made it clear he didn't want her… or so she thought. At the time, she had dismissed it as wishful thinking brought on by the romantic setting and the wonderful day in each others' company. Now she knew she must have been right, and the thought made her heart pound erratically.

He'd looked at her the same way just before she'd spotted the man she thought was Andy on the subway this morning. _Wow, that was this morning? It feels like so long ago._

In fact, now that she thought about it, there were actually numerous times in the past when Danny had looked at her in a similar way. Only then he was clearly just as confused about what was happening as she was. Various moments from the past popped into her mind: the time they'd accidentally touched hands on the plane from Santa Fe before he gripped hers definitively _on purpose_ , the time he'd cleaned her glasses for her and slid them gently back on, his fingers in her newly shortened hair the night she decided to go to Haiti, the time he'd kissed her cheek post Weiner Night before leaving with another woman, the hug at the Christmas party after he performed a dance he'd memorized just for her. Each time, there had been an underlying uncertainty there, something he was clearly flummoxed by and not ready to explore. Each time, she managed to convince herself it was just affection that made him look at her like that, like she was something different, like she was something special. It seemed unbelievably obvious now that it hadn't been only friendly affection.

Neither of them had known it, but they had been falling for each other a long time.

Over time, the uncertainty in those looks had shifted to a far more vulnerable, risky place. Confusion became fear, creeping in stealthily like a particularly insidious cancer. Whether it was fear of his feelings, fear of rejection, fear of hurting or losing her, she could never be sure although all of these had undoubtedly played a role in his stupid decision to end things. At some point in the not too distant past, however, a small portion of that fear seemed to have disappeared almost overnight. Lately, she realized in hindsight, it had seemed like he was no long unsure of one thing– his own feelings. Her feelings were still unknown to him until tonight. She hadn't missed the complete and utter relief on his face when she said she loved him too. As he looked at her now, his eyes held such obvious love she recognized it instantly. There was also an unabashed warmth there that intoxicated her. It was like he was thrilled to finally be able to let her see what how he felt and look at her with all of that emotion plainly showing on his face.

The racing torrent of these thoughts and his steady gaze made her hot all over, and Mindy inhaled slowly in an effort to keep herself from dragging him behind the nearest lockable door. Not for the first time, she was thankful for the deep shade of her skin that had hidden a multitude of revelatory blushes throughout her life.

"Oh, this is so unfair," she muttered after a long silence teeming with sexual tension. "You probably couldn't even get it up right now if you wanted to." Danny snorted indelicately, watching her take off her coat and fan her face.

"How much you wanna bet? Wait… do you want me to?"

"Ha-ha. There's nothing we could do about it now and you know it. Someone will be here any minute to take you to Radiology."

"Hmm. Good point. That would be awkward." He leaned toward her a little.

"It would be. So awkward. Especially since you're only wearing a hospital gown," she managed, getting drawn in by his dark eyes.

"Mmm." He leaned still further, eyes roaming her face hungrily.

"Stop it."

"Stop what?"

"You're smoldering at me. You know I can't resist your smolder."

"Then why are you trying?" His face was only inches from hers now and she knew he hadn't been the only one leaning in. (Damn it.)

"I have an idea," she whispered, licking her lips, thrilling at the spark of desire in his eyes as they flickered to her mouth.

"You do?"

"Uh-huh." Her voice was barely audible, breathy even, as she brushed her open lips against his with a feather light touch while they shared breaths. He inhaled shakily, gasping when her tongue flicked across his lower lip. She kept it up until neither of them could stand it. "While you're in Radiology," she whispered into his mouth, drawing the sentence out. "I'm going to go upstairs and change into my scrubs," she stated, pulling back. He stared at her stupidly, saying nothing for a full five seconds.

"Wait– What?!… You gotta be kidding me!" His head dropped back and he stared at the ceiling before covering his face with his hands.

"I can't help it that you're this sexually addicted to me, Danny." She stood back and smoothed her clothes down casually.

"Uuuuggghh," Danny groaned behind his hands. "Are you _trying_ to give me a heart attack? I hate you so much right now," he growled without looking at her.

"No, you don't– you love me, you wanna have beautiful mixed race babies with me," she trilled in a singsong voice, much the way Peter had once done to her, "or rather one beautiful mixed race boy named Anthony Francis… Yuck."

She was so caught up in her victory she didn't see it coming. In a flash, Danny hands shot out, grabbing fistfuls of her vest and pulling her to him roughly. Luckily, she was standing to his left, so no contact could be made with his injured side. Not that she was thinking about that much. She was mostly thinking _Whoa!_ and then, _Oh God…_ before her brain just turned to mush.

Her upper body fell over his, one had steadying herself next to his body on the bed, the other clutching near his shoulder. There was nothing slow about it this time. Instead, he devoured her, moving his tongue past her lips in an purely erotic way that liquified her insides instantly. She heard herself whimper a little before angling her head to give him better access while her legs weakened beneath her. As she leaned precariously over him, he tugged her coat free from where it was draped over her arm, arranging it hastily over his lap before placing a hand over hers where it gripped his shoulder. Their mouths stayed linked as he haltingly slid their hands down his chest, over his abs, and under the edge of her coat until she felt the hard ridge of his erection through his briefs. He moaned softly against her lips as she stroked him lightly through the layers of material once, twice, and a third time before she made herself stop, pulling back slightly to look down at him.

"Guess I was wrong," she rasped. He nodded unsteadily, eyes drifting closed when she stroked over him again. Pointedly, he grabbed her hand and slid it back into view.

"Turn about is fair play. Between what you did to me on the street and in the cab, Min, I've been halfway there for a while now. Why do you think I left my underwear on?" His jaw clenched as he breathed deeply, trying to calm down.

"You have? I didn't notice." She would have ribbed him mercilessly had she known and, of course, been that much more tempted to drag him off somewhere private.

"Yeah. Made things with Glenn slightly weird, but I think he understood."

"Danny, do I… Do I really turn you on that much?" The question came out casually, but there was an unintentional quiver in her voice that gave away its depth. There were times when she found it amazing Danny was attracted to her at all. If he had a type, she never would never have thought she was anywhere near it; the women he dated were mostly skinny and perfect at least in her eyes. Despite her frequent assertions of her own hotness, somewhere inside there was still a girl that didn't quite believe she was desirable, worried that she didn't measure up to the standard of beauty, and feared that she wasn't going to be enough, especially for someone like him. There was a part of her that worried Danny would end up wishing she were thinner or had bigger breasts or blue eyes or any number of other things she may or may not be able to change.

He grimaced, about to say something off-handed and light, when her tone registered. In the space of a heartbeat, his expression shifted from playful to totally sincere. He stared at her a moment, another strange, thoughtful look in his eyes before he moved his focus to her hand he still held lightly against his body.

"Mindy," he began, pausing as he gathered the words. He sighed quietly, playing with her fingers, hesitant for reasons she couldn't determine but sent her mind racing frantically with fear. "You… You make me feel… like I'm sixteen years old again." Of all the things she imagined him saying, this wasn't one of them.

"Um. Is that… good or bad?" The way he said it, she couldn't tell and she abruptly needed to know the answer like she needed to breathe.

"Oh, it's good," he said, but his expression indicated otherwise.

"Then can you tell that to your face? Why do you look like I just asked you to go to a musical with me again?" Lifting one shoulder, he seemed reluctant to elaborate as she stared at him. He opened his mouth several times to speak but nothing came out. Feeling slightly sick, she was about to tell him to forget it when he spoke softly.

"Because it's– it's kind of embarrassing… because I– basically… I want you all the time. And not just sex, although that's… really, really great." At this she couldn't help but smile. "I get excited just holding your hand, touching your hair, making you laugh. All you have to do is look at me a certain way, or hell, just walk into the room or smile and my heart just... just _pounds_ like I've never touched a girl before. You make me _want_ to be romantic, you make me wanna do dumb things for you like the guys in those movies you love… I mean, it's like I've never been in love before. Not like this. So do you really turn me on that much? Fuck yes, Min. You do. You really do. All the time."

Unexpectedly, Mindy's eyes filled. Even as she was smiling, a tear dripped down on his chest, marking the space over his heart with a tiny darkened circle. She drew a ragged breath as his hand came up to brush away the track it left on her cheek. "Hey… don't get upset." He pressed soft kisses to her forehead, her nose, and her lips. "I said it's a good thing! Look, I even told my face." Lifting her chin, he gave her another huge, dopey grin that made her laugh through the tears.

"I know, I'm sorry, I just needed to hear it... I didn't mean to start– I'm just tired," she sniffled pathetically.

"Don't apologize. Just don't doubt that I'm attracted to you, okay? I love you."

She nodded, pressing her lips together. "I'm probably going to need to hear that a lot for a while."

"Bring it on." His eyes narrowed. "But if you tell anyone what I said about feeling like a teenager, I'll deny every word."

"Aaaaand you just ruined it. I was about to ask when you figured out how to always say the right thing."

He gave a cocky shrug. "I'm gifted that way."

"No, the point is that just now you _didn't_ say the ri– No, you know what? Never mind. You were having a one time streak so I'll let you have it. Can I move my coat now, Danny?"

"Yeah, I'm good."

"Okay. I really am going to go change now though. My feet are killing me. I'll meet you back down here when I'm done."

"Alright. I'll text you. And can you get me something to eat? I'm starving."

"You're always starving. But I'll get you something anyway." She straightened, glancing toward his groin to make sure he was suitably calmed. She was about to go, but couldn't resist one last peck on the lips that turned into another lengthy kiss. Danny didn't seem to mind, his hands sliding back into her hair and down the sides of her neck. When she finally pulled away again, he sighed heavily.

"Maybe I'll just take your coat with me to Radiology. That wouldn't be weird, right?"

"You're secret's safe with me. Or you can use your own," she teased, grabbing his jacket from the end of the bed again.

"Yeah, yeah… Get outta here," he said, over-emphasizing his accent. He shoved her away lightly after taking the proffered lap-covering jacket.

"Alright, alright, I'm going," she threw over her shoulder. As she walked away she pulled her phone out again, opening the message thread to Danny. Before she could type out anything, the indicator bubble popped up on his end showing he was typing a message to her, making her heart jump in surprise.

**Danny**

\- Your hips. Your ass. Your calves when you wear heels.

\- 3 very sexy things that turned me on just watching you walk away. Now hurry up so I can get you home and take you to bed.

Needless to say, a huge grin spread across her face as she exaggerated the sway of her walk, knowing he could likely still see her. She turned the corner and hit the elevator button before thinking up a sassy response to send.

Two could play this game.


	3. What's Going On In That Beautiful Mind

Danny's head felt as though it were drifting somewhere in the vicinity of the stratosphere. Honestly, it wasn't a sensation he would normally be fond of but in this instance it wasn't so bad. He'd never gone through that phase of experimenting with mind altering drugs when he was younger. "I prefer to keep my wits about me, thanks. You go ahead and kill as many brain cells as you like– I don't have any to spare," was his usual snarky response when asked why he wouldn't join the supposedly harmless fun. The one and only time he tried weed, he didn't like it much; he had enough trouble kicking one smoking habit without adding another. A working class kid from Staten who was trying to become a doctor didn't have time for shenanigans like that anyway. (At least, that's what his mother always told him. Fortunately, he agreed. Plus, he had Richie to think about and didn't want to set a bad example.) No, if there was one thing Danny indulged too much in it was nearly always alcohol, not recreational drugs… except for nicotine, which was at least legal if not healthful. He was a man who couldn't resist a good beer or glass of fine whiskey and frankly saw no reason not to appreciate both as responsibly as possible. (Or irresponsibly and in the middle of the desert as the case may be... given the circumstances, he figured it was forgivable.)

This high, though, this particular good feeling elevating his consciousness couldn't be blamed solely on the perfectly legal, hospital issued narcotic currently coursing through his system. It wasn't even due to over indulging in spirits for once. No, this euphoria, this floaty contentment that had him on the ever clichéd cloud nine was largely because of a woman. Not just a woman– his woman, so to speak. Although it was more like the other way around, not that he'd ever say as much. Nope. She would only prove to be that much more dangerous when she found out just how completely and unalterably she possessed his heart.

Eh, who was he kidding? He couldn't wait. It's not like he was going to be able to hide the fact that he was totally lost to her. It was swiftly becoming apparent he'd never been good at hiding much of anything when it came to Mindy, if stories like Glenn's were to be believed.

No… He was toast, plain and simple. Nothing to be done about it even if he wanted to, which he didn't.

In light of this, he was more than unusually satisfied to be resting comfortably in a hospital bed feeling no pain whatsoever. No physical or emotional pain to be found. Between finally having the love of his life, knowing she returned the sentiment, and the Lortab he'd taken, Danny was feeling pretty good considering he'd been hit by a car not long ago. He even felt himself drifting off as his brain fuzzily sifted recent events and emotions. For the last half hour or so, he'd managed to force his mind to work around the fog so that he could continue to have some semblance of normal conversation with Mindy, but now that he was alone he gave in to the blurry stream of swirling thoughts.

_Mindy, Mindy, Min, Min, Mindy... Lahiri. La-la-lahiri. My Mindy. Min. Mine. Hot Indian doctor whose ass won't quit, and why would you want it to? Mmmmm. I really do love her ass. Did I tell her that? I should tell her. I should tell her I wanna bend her over the back of my couch or my desk (any available surface really) pull up her skirt and slide deep into her wet_ –

_Whoa. Calm down_. Obviously, the primary thing being processed was a heavy dose of lust, which was understandable given the amount of making out (not to mention the lesser amount of heavy petting) they'd been doing. _God, I love her hands on me. I love kissing her, too. I told her about the thing with her lips, right? Yeah, I did. That thing that makes me think of other things she can do with her mouth, other places she can put it… Oh, it makes me hard when she does that, so hard I can't think and I just wanna grab her and f–_

_Whoa! Still in public. CALM DOWN!_

His eyes popped open as he reluctantly blinked away the tantalizing images he'd conjured, adjusting the jacket covering his crotch. Its placement was probably conspicuous when he and Mindy and been engaged in more than one steamy embrace over the last hour, each more likely to have garnered notice than the last (and particularly the last). On some level, he recognized the situation as one that would have hugely embarrassed him in the past, particularly the thought of people observing such private moments. Not anymore. Now, he just smiled and checked his phone again, seeing the previously sent message referencing his fascination with her derrière and the rest of her body as she'd walked away to go upstairs.

Chuckling to himself, he shook his head at the thought that he had officially become that guy he used to hate, the one who didn't care if he was seen shamelessly ogling his own girlfriend in public. The type of sorry, whipped bastard who stopped in the middle of the sidewalk to kiss her (with tongue) just because he wanted to or because it had been all of ten minutes since the last time he kissed her. He, Danny Castellano, was now the sappy, completely smitten guy who watched a woman walk away because he was so attuned to her he couldn't take his eyes off her when she was in his presence. (Not to mention running across the city to get to her like Billy Crystal in "When Harry Met Sally"... and watching a movie like that with her willingly in the first place.)

The phone in his hand buzzed as a new message came in, drawing his attention.

**M** \- What would do with me once you got me there?

He stared at the question without comprehending it fully. The text before, he saw, had also referenced the fact that he couldn't wait to take her to bed which was 100% true. But his formerly reigned-in thinking was now sluggish and all over the place. Despite his great interest in the topic at hand, he was finding it difficult to focus. Several deep breaths of cobweb-clearing oxygen helped as he squinted at the screen, wishing he had his reading glasses. It took him far longer than it should have to realize what was happening.

Once he did, he was doubly glad he was covered with the jacket. He also wondered how fast the word would get around that one of the OBs had a raging erection when he was taken to radiology from the ER where he'd been busy making out with one of the other doctors from his practice. Another thing that might have formerly been a cause for embarrassment to him. Oh, well. He couldn't bring himself to care anymore who knew he was in love with and was turned on by Mindy.

Mindy, who was apparently trying to start a sexting conversation with him... Or sent him a sext? He wasn't sure of the terminology here. Regardless, any remaining blood in his brain fled with the rest to regions decidedly lower than his belly button. To clear the fog from his head a bit more, he quickly drained the rest of the coffee she brought earlier even though it had gone tepid. Then he sat up a bit straighter, shook his head vigorously, and considered his reply.

I'd do a lot of things– touch you, taste you... Blow your mind. ;) - **D**

Not terribly specific, but it was taking a bit longer than normal to get his hands to cooperate. He had to concentrate very hard to keep from fat-fingering the whole message like he had before. She had commented on the winky face he used before so he figured he couldn't go wrong sending it again even if it made him a perv for reasons he didn't understand.

He waited for her to respond with bated breath, trying to remember the last time he'd done something like this. There was Peter's sister Sally, but that had really been more one-sided than anything else and involved unsolicited pictures more than text. Come to think of it, he wasn't sure he'd ever done anything quite like this. Nervous excitement shot through him as he pictured her and the entirety of their day in his mind, the salacious scenarios of his imagination returning with gusto.

As much as he poked at her about her extensive and sometimes eye-popping wardrobe, he secretly adored how she dressed. (That's not to say he understood it, only that he'd learned to appreciate it.) Even though she occasionally went overboard in general, she nearly always managed to strike a good balance between sexy, feminine, and professional, choosing clothes that ultimately flattered her generous curves. He particularly enjoyed when she dressed up; there was a sleek red dress he'd seen her in once or twice that quite frankly made her a smoking hot temptress. (Of course, when he'd tried to tell her some version of this opinion she told him to go to hell, as he recalled. The level of antagonism between them was higher than that of friendship at the time, so he'd used the word 'nice' when 'crazy, bangable hot' would've been closer to the mark. He was still in denial about being attracted to her at all and didn't want to give her a big head.) Although there wasn't a single color he could think of that she didn't look great wearing, there were a few she looked particularly stunning in.

Red was far and away his absolute favorite.

Today was no exception. When they met at the entrance to their subway line, his breath slowed to a standstill as she approached in her bright pink coat and power suit combo that emphasized and complimented her dark, shining hair and dewy skin. Not for the first time, he prayed silently his face betrayed no outward hint of his riotous inner emotion when he saw her. He felt the same tingly, vibrant excitement zipping along under the surface of his skin that he'd been experiencing in her company more and more the past few months and had to restrain himself from reaching out to touch her.

Somehow she managed to make multiple patterns _and_ bright colors work, like always. He couldn't imagine anyone else wearing what she wore with the same panache. Likewise the red lipstick slicked across her mouth that caused his belly to clench painfully, never failing to make him think of kissing it off until it was all over his cheeks and lips and she'd be forced to reapply it. He wondered if it was the same one she was wearing the first time he kissed her that tasted of bitter chocolate.

As they took their place in the train and she began musing about how fun her funeral would be, he'd been able to carry on a pretty normal conversation even though his thoughts had been vastly different from what he said aloud. (Example: the reason he'd 'have to' vouch for her in heaven wasn't only because of he expected to be well connected; he'd vouch for her because [if all went according to plan] she was going to be his wife.) He thought he hadn't given too much of himself away until she'd asked if he wanted to get breakfast and be late to work. Turning to look at her, he heard his voice get low and intimate as he replied because his mind was on fire with far more intimate notions. _Oh boy, do I ever want breakfast_ , he'd groaned internally, _But I wanna have it in bed after we've made love. And then I wanna have **you** again and again... and eat you for dessert. _

Unfortunately, less than five seconds later, reality came crashing down as Mindy spied the man who was supposed to be Andy across the crowded subway car. Before that harsh wake-up call of an interruption, he'd felt a bloom of fragile, aching hope in his chest as it occurred to him in that moment that she could finally be ready to hear what he had to say and maybe, just maybe would decide she wanted to be with him too. His phone buzzed again, reminding him of everything that had happened since and bringing him back to the present where a very familiar sense of welcome relief flooded in. As agonizing as it had all been, he hoped he never forgot how close he came to losing her. The sheer, soul-crushing fear he'd felt made it that much sweeter to be where he was now, appreciating a second chance. And he hoped to keep appreciating it for the rest of their lives. _Okay, she's rubbed off on me more than I thought if I'm narrating, too… I suppose there are worse things._

As he turned his attention to the tiny screen, he realized she'd sent multiple messages while he'd been caught up in his thoughts.

**M** \- Good start. Keep going…

**M** \- …

**M** \- Daaaaaannnnnyyy.

**M** \- Danny, did you space out on me? That's very rude!

A little, sorry Min. Meds are making me sleepy. - **D**

**M** \- Sure it's not the late hour making you sleepy, old man?

Sass mouth... - **D**

**M** \- You know it. Would you want me any other way? Don't answer that, it's rhetorical.

**M** \- So... how exactly you would blow my mind, Danny? How would you touch  & taste me?

_Definitely sexting_ , he thought with a grin.

You're determined to make me embarrass myself, aren't you? - **D**

**M** \- …Maybe.

You are! I knew you weren't a nice girl. You've been making eyes at me all night.- **D**

**M** \- True. We may not be on the subway, but you are a strange man, so I guess you're right about me. Doesn't that make me a naughty girl tho? ;)

Oh, I hope you are. So, so naughty. Otherwise I fell for the wrong girl. - **D**

**M** \- Lol. Ok, pause your sexy self a minute, I'm in the caff. Sandwich, chips and a drink sound alright?

Yeah... And get me some of that green jello stuff. - **D**

**M** \- You're literally the only person I know who likes that crap, weirdo.

Hey! You should be nicer to me. You love me, remember? - **D**

**M** \- Hmmm. Right again. We'll see if you continue to deserve being treated nicely.

Lets start with nice and work our way toward naughty… :) - **D**

For some reason, this teasing made him remember her earlier question, asked so simply when it was anything but. It killed him to think she spent a single second worrying he wasn't that attracted to her. If anything, he was too attracted to her although he wasn't sure that was possible. He hadn't lied when he said she made him feel like a horny teenager. The last time he'd done this much fantasizing about a girl was when he'd been moderately obsessed with his high school biology lab partner. The best he could do back then was envision his impression of sex since he wouldn't know what it felt like for another year or so.

Even teenage infatuation couldn't hold a candle to what he felt now, though. With two decades of sexual experience under his belt and a career in gynecology, he knew everything he could possibly want to know about the female body. Which still wouldn't consign him to a constant state of semi-arousal around Mindy if he didn't also know her body intimately as well.

After he broke things off with her, he'd been regularly tortured by vivid recollections of exactly how she felt under his hands and body, how intense the chemistry was between them, how perfectly they fit together. He knew she tucked up under his chin nicely when she didn't have heels on. He knew her fingers neatly laced between his. He knew her lips molded beautifully against his own. He knew he felt more like he was exactly who, what, and where he was supposed to be in her presence than he did in anyone else's. He knew she brought light and fun into a world that would otherwise be gray and lifeless. And he knew how absolutely, overwhelmingly right it felt the first time he slid inside her, how they moved and connected with each other in a way he'd never experienced and feared he never would again. No woman had ever grabbed him the way she did.

From the second he'd gotten up from his seat on the flight back from LA to the moment he realized he loved her, he'd struggled to clearly define what it was about Mindy that just… did it for him in every respect.

All his life he pursued women that the rest of society considered 'hot'. It was a category he found himself placed in, once his childhood chubbiness went away and he started exercising. He was told he was an attractive guy, so he figured that meant he needed to be with a certain type of woman. In general, society's definition of beauty and his own definition lined up pretty well, or so he thought. The older he got, however, the broader and more nuanced his personal definition of 'hotness' became. At some point, he came to wonder if there might have been opportunities lost in his past to have good relationships with women he hadn't even noticed because the prevailing standard of beauty he felt bound to adhere to was, in actuality, far too narrow and limited.

In hindsight, he figured this was at least part of the reason he resisted his attraction to Mindy for so long. She certainly didn't fit any sort of type he pictured himself ending up with and Danny was not the sort of man who dealt well with anything outside his comfort zone. At least, he was before he met Mindy. (To be fair, he figured he was still that sort of man most of the time, but if anyone could coax him out of his habitual grump when it came to new things, it was her. With Mindy at his side, he felt like he could deal with… pretty much anything. Even reuniting with his dad.) It didn't help that, when they first knew each other, he found her so exceptionally annoying that the spark of chemistry was highly unwelcome. Not only did he fight it like mad, but he dove deep into denial also, because there was no way he could _possibly_ end up with someone like _her_. His statement about how he 'would never marry this woman' on the subway a few years ago perfectly encapsulated how he felt about her at the time.

Now, it was just funny.

This type-driven pursuit had worked fairly well for him in the past, like when he was first with his ex-wife. After that, there were affairs that started off promisingly with plenty of fireworks and heat only to prove fragile and fleeting, as was the case with their pharmaceutical rep, Brook. Admittedly, some ended because of external issues that led one party to break it off over stupid things that served to highlight true incompatibility. Still, others were warm and burned slightly longer but faded to embers in the end. These were the times the physicality ended up feeling forced and perfunctory like when he was last with his ex-wife. The spark just fizzled out after a while, leaving him with no explanation as to why or how to prevent it from happening in the future.

With the benefit of distance and time, Danny could safely admit the whole second go-around with Christina never should have happened. The fact that he was no longer angry over her infidelity seemed to indicate that his feelings for her were never again going to be strong enough to sustain a long-term relationship. Instead, he'd taken it as a sign that he was ready to test those waters again because he felt like he owed it to himself and maybe to her to find out for certain whether they could or couldn't work. As crazy as the second implosion with her had been, he'd never forget one of the last real conversations they'd had. He'd gone out to the house in Jersey one day after work to get a few things he'd inadvertently left behind not long after The Great Tribulations of 2013. (The title and acronym TGT'13 were coined by Mindy to sum up the flurry of rather life-changing events and near-events that all occurred within a month of each other: her own engagement/emergency surgery/interrupted wedding/return to the practice, his confrontation with/failure to propose to/realization he was unhappy with Christina, Christina sleeping with He-Whose-Face-Danny-Punched [another Mindyism] to get back at Danny/Danny nearly leaving the practice/aforementioned party leaving instead.)

When he arrived, the rental car in the drive nearly made him turn right back around and return to the city. The house was going to become a furnished rental for the time being because neither of them could bear to live there now and he didn't want to turn around and sell it immediately. All their personal items had to be removed or stored in preparation for this. He hadn't seen or communicated with Christina for a some time and preferred to keep it that way. In retrospect, he should have known it wasn't a complete coincidence that brought her to the house at a time when he wasn't guaranteed to be at work.

* * *

_"So, how long has it been going on, Danny?"_

_He squeezed his eyes closed tightly as the sense of impending doom he'd been keeping at bay settled over him. For the past thirty minutes she'd been tight lipped, moving about the house in furious hummingbird mode, stuffing things in boxes with sharp, angry movements before carting them out the door. Danny, wanting to stay out of her way and especially wanting to keep from being sucked into an fight, sat at the kitchen table staring blankly at an old newspaper. He craved a cigarette desperately but didn't want to draw undue attention to his presence by getting up, figuring his best bet was to keep his head down until she left. He refused to let her chase him completely away from his own house but was willing to give her some space until she finished up._

_She came up behind him as she asked the question, coming of the multipurpose room with a half-filled box in her arms which she then dropped heavily on the table across from him as he regarded her warily. Belatedly, he remembered she'd said something. Her voice piercing the relative silence had jarred him unpleasantly, her language sounding foreign to his ears after so much quiet. "What?"_

_"I said, how long has it been going on?" It was clear she was accusing him of something but what exactly, he couldn't fathom._

_"Excuse me?!" Hot indignation rose inside him, enveloping and quashing the dread. Yes, they'd both made mistakes but by his estimation, she was the last one of them to fuck up by sleeping with Pau– He-Whose– …uh, that one doctor guy. (It had been suggested that Danny avoid thinking about him by name as a means of 'cleansing bad juju' or whatever, but he drew the line at referring to himself in the third person just to keep from saying it. When he told Mindy this, she'd suggested as alternate He-Whose-Stupid-Last-Name-Is-Also-Dancewear. He balked at that, too.)_

_"How long? How long have you had feelings for her?"_

_"What– Who?" He could hear the defensive break in his voice and wanted to cringe. She had a knack for raising his hackles with a single sentence, much like someone else he knew. Only he didn't enjoy arguing with her. With her it was a tedious chore to suss out the_ _latest source of her irritation with him._

_"I'm sorry," she said in a way that meant she really, really wasn't. "Did you think I wouldn't notice? I mean, Jesus! I'll admit it took me awhile to see it but I'm not totally blind, Danny!"_

_"What the hell are you talking about?" This time he just sounded exasperated and tired. And he was– so, so tired of having these spiraling discussions that never went anywhere. Why couldn't she leave well enough alone, for God's sake?_

_"Your porn, Danny," she spat, her expression incredulous. It occurred to him in that second how masculine she appeared at times; he was surprised he never noticed before. He laughed mirthlessly, running his hands down his face._

_"Seriously, you wanna talk about–" Huffing wearily, he saw she was serious and it pissed him off. "No, you know what? We're **not** gonna talk about that. You know why? Because you slept with a coworker of mine, a fellow doctor in my practice, just to get back at me! You really have no right to bring up… NO. No, no, no, this isn't happening." He pushed back from the table and stood with the intention of leaving despite his earlier resolve to not back down. Stalking toward the front door, he thought he might even slam it just to make himself feel better. _

_"Oh, boo-hoo! I wouldn't have slept with him if you and I had actually been having sex, Danny. God forbid someone else is actually attracted to me… And yes, I wanted to hurt you, so sue me!" He stopped and turned toward her slowly, face thunderous. In the back of his mind, he heard his mother's voice telling him never to strike a woman, reminding himself that he had never done so and never wanted to do so. He would never be the kind of man who did something so despicable no matter how angry he got._

_That didn't prevent him from striking verbally, however._

_Christina was shaking her head in disbelief, a look of superiority crossing her features as she gazed to the side, unable to look at him. He was ready to bite back when he saw it._

_Momentarily, the mask of her outrage split slightly and through the crack and he glimpsed the sweeter, softer, more naive girl she'd once been. The girl he married so long ago. It dulled the razor edge of his own wrath to see the extent of the pain she was hiding. No matter what she had done, she was hurting, too._

_"Never mind," she scoffed finally, swiping hurriedly at a tear that had fallen. "If you don't see it, I'm certainly not going to be the one to enlighten you."_

_The words he was going to say before had died in his throat. It took him a second to regroup, still baffled by her line of reasoning._

_"See what? I still don't– You're the one who– " He forced himself to stop, pinching the bridge of his nose. As good as it might have felt to continue the shouting match, he really wasn't in the mood now. It was time to take a different tack. "Okay, would you stop being so condescending? Look, I told you that for my part, I am sorry. I'm sorry about all of this. I don't know what else you want from me. I'm just– I told you I'm– I wasn't… I just wasn't happy." Her eyes rolled at this, irritating him all over again; she knew that sort of childish gesture really needled him. He was a hair's breadth away from spinning on his heel and leaving after all when she spoke quietly._

_"I know that, Danny," she said, striving but not quite succeeding at keeping the bitterness out of her voice. "If I couldn't have guessed it from the lack of sex, the porn definitely cleared things up for me." It seemed she, too, was willing to keep this from devolving once more. "It didn't even occur to me when I first found it, you know. It was only later that I realized…" She trailed off, enjoying the withholding of information that she obviously felt was somehow portentous._

_His shoulders lifted and fell in an exhausted shrug. "Realized what." He wasn't asking because he knew she was going to tell him whether he wanted to hear it or not. And boy, did he ever not want to hear about anything related to his furtive consumption of pornography while they were together. Was it not horrifying enough that she'd thrown it in his face in front of Mindy and the entire office? And then destroyed his computer to boot?_

_"It wasn't your searches that surprised me the most– they weren't that atypical, but your viewing history was… revealing, to say the least." Her tone was hesitant but just smug enough to make him lash out._

_"You know I don't know what that means, Christina, so get to the point."_

_"Really? 'Viewing history'? It's kind of self explanatory…"_

_"See? Condescending." Involuntarily, his fists clenched with the effort of resisting the urge to begin shouting again._

_"Fine." Her hands came up in front of her in open-palmed surrender. "The things is, I couldn't help but notice… more often than not, you were looking at women with darker skin."_

_"Wha– So what? Why does that matter?"_

_"Women who look like they could be Indian. Or like someone you work with?" She enunciated the last slowly as though speaking to a child. Then her eyebrows raised in a significant manner as she hefted the box again, leaving Danny standing in the kitchen with his mouth hanging open, speechless and dumbfounded for a full five minutes after she was gone._

_When he came back to himself at last, he latched onto the fact that she'd in gotten the last word rather than ponder the implications of her point._

* * *

 

Later, he would wonder just how much Christina had been able to figure out about his true feelings when he wasn't sure of them himself at the time. He wondered if she knew before he did the only reason he'd told her he changed his mind about slowing things down was Mindy deciding to go to Haiti after all with blonde-new-age-hippy-preacher-guy. (Any ex of Mindy's had a similarly hyphenated moniker in his mind because he didn't care to think of them as real people. It was a matter of public safety, really. If they were real people, then he'd be too tempted to punch them in the face for treating her badly. Simple as that.) After all, if he threw himself into being with Christina, he wouldn't dwell on how much he missed Mindy or why he was keeping each of her letters in his personal box at work instead of at home.

He also wondered if Christina had somehow been able to sense his conflicted preoccupation with the moment that happened in the lounge between him and Mindy the night he discovered exactly how luxuriously soft her shortened hair was and just how badly he wanted to explore her mouth with his own. His fixation stemmed from it being the same moment he began to realize his feelings toward her could no longer be safely relegated to categories like friendship or minor attraction.

The truth was, the comment about hating her new look was a defensive reflex because the punch of pure, unfettered desire he'd felt low in his gut upon seeing her caught him completely off guard. It was easier to fall back on their pattern of easy, bickering banter than it was to examine it, or what he'd done afterward. The brief contact of his hand on her arm hadn't been enough. After telling her about slowing things down with Christina, he looked up at her, perched on the couch, feet tucked under her body and looking so achingly lovely he surged toward her without meaning to, his hands raising to cup her face. When he realized what he was doing, he pretended her glasses were dirty as an excuse to touch her again, to get close enough to watch her pupils dilate as her eyes darted to his mouth, the awareness crackling between them so palpable, it raised his skin in gooseflesh.

Subsequently, when her words broke the tension, it was easier to pretend he wasn't that affected by her announcement of getting back together with her boyfriend than it was to question why he felt so devastated by the news that she was also leaving with him to go to a third world country hundreds of miles away. It was just the idea missing her, he reasoned, that left him feeling so forlorn, not the idea of missing the chance to see what she tasted like, to feel his fingers comb through her silky short hair as they kissed.

Yet that moment, that undeniable spark between them haunted him for months, following him around as steadily as his shadow, forcing him to acknowledge the tiny seedling that would one day flower into deeper affection, powerful friendship, and a stronger love than he thought he was capable of feeling.

Because no matter how long he waited or how much he sometimes wanted it to, the spark with Mindy never seemed to fizzle or fade in the slightest. If anything, it grew hotter over time, so much so it eventually caused a roaring inferno inside him, making his gut churn with feelings he didn't know how to handle until he just gave in and did something about it. The something being cornering her in the galley of an airplane and kissing her with abandon after helping her write a stupidly romantic reconciliation email to another man that inadvertently contained nothing short of Danny's heart laid bare before her.

When he'd finally done it, when he'd finally screwed up the courage to followed her, threw aside the bottle of water she was holding that was intended for him, cradled her face gently and dove in, it was insistent and disconcertingly desperate. He moved his lips repeatedly against hers while she was still too shocked to respond for one specific reason he wouldn't come to appreciate until afterward; if she slapped him, shoved him away, or rejected him completely, he needed to have the memory of how her lips felt pressed to his. He had to know what it felt like to kiss her just once. He gave her an opportunity to pull away briefly before returning his mouth to hers, unconsciously stroking her cheeks with his thumbs as she stared at him with big, dark, questioning eyes.

Several intense minutes passed before it occurred to him that he also needed to know she wasn't just getting caught up in the moment with him. He wanted her to choose him. And even though he thought he'd gladly melt through the floor when she didn't react after he counted to three, he couldn't keep from adding an extra, hopeful little digit just in case. Boy, was he glad he did.

All because of that spark that refused to be ignored.

As it turned out, he didn't have to live on the memory of one kiss. The spark wasn't his alone anymore. The melting still occurred, though not through the floor. Instead, it happened in his body and heart after flaring back to life when she grasped his neck and smiled bewitchingly.

Miraculously, they sparked together.

In fact, the electricity between them was such that the simple act of kissing her was unbelievably fantastic in itself. And despite their brief foray into Mile High Club territory, he'd really only resisted her request to take it slow out of a twisted sense of male pride that masked his concern that she just wasn't as into him as he was into her. (He'd even deigned to ask Richie for advice on the matter, for crying out loud, something his brother would probably never let him live down now that Mindy was back in his life.) It was ironic that she was the one now worrying about physical attraction when he'd experienced the same uncertainty himself.

Fortunately, he was wrong about that too because when they did finally have sex the fireworks there were also… unexpectedly extraordinary.

No, not unexpected, not exactly. Just far more amazing than he'd anticipated. He felt an intense connection, a heightened sense of being in the moment with her during sex that he took his breath away. There was no conscious effort on his part to put up a front or play a role when he was with her, no part of himself he held in reserve. They knew one another so well, they could read each other, predict reactions to various stimuli. He didn't feel the need to hide from her by avoiding eye contact when they made love. Instead, he sought it out, falling into her eyes as the physical intensity built along with the emotional. Without meaning to, he shared more of himself with her then than he'd shared with anyone. Ever.

It was a terrifying vulnerability he hadn't known he was sheltering deep in a battered part of his psyche. The same vulnerability, the same uncertainty would make him feel unworthy of her later, would made him doubt his ability to keep anything more than her friendship.

**M** \- All done here. You may resume sexting. And try not to be lame, Danny. No bad movie references allowed.

I make no promises. Give me a second to think, here. The possibilities are endless... - **D**

**M** \- Think fast! You didn't have any problems earlier. :P

He grinned at this, feeling his body respond to the memory of her long fingers brushing over him, so close but not close enough.

Now that they had expressed their feelings verbally to each other, he wanted her more than ever. Just hearing the words spoken out loud could probably work him into a state of quivering need right now. He craved the intimacy of making love, staking their mutual claim on each other as they built each layer of sensation. He could listen for hours to the sounds she made when he did all the things he knew drove her wild and could so easily make her fall apart. How had it ever scared him to feel this way?

Back in the days when he'd been trying to convince himself he wasn't that attracted to her, he'd wondered if he could work it out of his system by seeking out women with body types more like hers. He found out quickly though, that wasn't it. He wasn't more or less attracted to other women of a similar body type, nor did he suddenly have a thing for Indian women.

It was… _her_. All of her. In the end, this was the only conclusion to be drawn, Danny decided. It was her kindness, her spontaneity, her humor and wit, her ability to make him laugh and feel better about the world, and to force him to be a better person; all of this combined with her skin, her curves, her eyes, her hair, her body... her everything. That is why he loved her, that is why she was it for him; not because of one of these things but because of the totality of them all combined in _her_.

Not to mention, once he'd actually seen all of her body (albeit accidentally), he couldn't stop thinking about it; hence the fantasies that had increasingly dominated his waking (and sleeping) thoughts.

He'd seen her body in bits and pieces over the years he'd known her, beginning with residency and incidental flashes of skin here and there when she was in a hurry and came out of the locker or on-call rooms pulling her scrub top down or something. The color of her skin was undeniably intriguing, as was the thought of seeing the glorious expanse of all of it at once. Her figure was fuller than he was accustomed to finding attractive, but not unpleasing to the eye. Even early on, he'd thought she definitely made it work in her favor. Still, he knew it was probably a point of sensitivity for her and had used that to his advantage on more than one occasion while being a jerk.

Her breasts he'd never thought much of until he tried to act as her gynecologist. Even then he'd been mostly able to file the tactile and visual information appropriately in his mind under the clinical mindset with which he viewed other patients. (Even with that little moan she uttered when he touched her for the first time.) But then there'd been the incident with Stevie when she'd come out of her closet with her shirt unbuttoned, giving him an eye-full. Then he couldn't seem to file it away as he had before, the setting being far less professional and all. Smaller breasts had always been his preference anyway and for a long time afterward, the image of her pretty bra would pop into his head unbidden, filled nicely by what he already knew were soft, pert mounds that he suspected would fill his palms just as well. Without warning, he would reflect on the dusky darker color of her small, tightened nipple as he'd seen it during the exam and imagine rolling it in his mouth to bring that small, satisfied sound out of her.

For the most part, though, he was able to suppress any knowledge pertaining to Mindy's physical charms in favor of maintaining first his antagonism, and then his friendship with her.

Everything came to a head when he agreed to be her personal trainer. He knew it wasn't going to be easy on his already twitching libido. (By then he'd acknowledged that he wanted her and actively regretted missing his opportunity to make that clear to her at Christmas.) Working that closely with her, seeing her in more form-fitting workout clothes (no matter how ridiculous), and watching her body change subtly, he felt himself even more inexorably drawn in. This in concert with her focus, determination, and the scent of hard won sweat rising from her heated body had his attraction growing by leaps and bounds.

And then, through no fault of his own, he'd ended up seeing her naked twice in as many days. Because of this, he'd taken in details about her he normally wouldn't have been privy to unless they slept together. It wasn't until after he'd been put in the strange position of subsequently bolstering her body image that he realized how much he'd exposed of his feelings in that brief interlude in his office. He flat-out told her there was almost nothing about her he'd change to make her more physically attractive, that it was good she looked like a woman, even saying he didn't personally want someone with blue eyes– the subtext being that what and who he wanted was her. Of course, he'd tried to couch it in terms of the detached observations he'd made as her trainer but, spoken aloud, it sounded just as hollow as it felt. He only hoped she hadn't analyzed minutiae the way he had after the fact.

Speaking of which, she was waiting for him to tell her what he wanted to do to her...

**M** \- Wake up, Danny… How will you use your weird body to blow my mind?

Oh, I see how it is. Maybe I won't use it at all if you're gonna call it weird. - **D**

**M** \- Oh, come on. You know I think you're hot.

Uh huh. Sure. Who's sexually addicted to whom exactly? - **D**

**M** \- Did you just use 'whom' in a sentence? Wow. Is this some sort of old fashioned form of sexting? Because I was thinking about specifics.

Yeah? - **D**

Show me how it's done then, if you're such an expert. - **D**

**M** \- 1st - This didn't really come up before, but… do you like talking dirty?

_Oh man_ , he thought wryly. _I'm in trouble_. She was right, it hadn't come up before because they hadn't been together long enough to explore the matter. They'd been perfectly content with having relatively conventional (and extremely satisfying) sex without throwing any kinks in the mix. He was pretty sure he had occasionally muttered a few things in the heat of the moment but that was all. Actually, when it came to the bedroom, he could really get into talking dirty as long as it didn't push certain boundaries. He especially loved it when a woman did it, and the idea of Mindy using words like that was especially hot.

Of course I do, I'm a guy. Do you have to ask? - **D**

**M** \- Right. ;) How about this?

**M** \- I really like touching you. I love the way you feel in my hand and the look on your face when I stroke you. It made me think of your hands on me, sliding up under my skirt to touch me through my panties.

He swallowed the sudden pooling of saliva in his mouth, wondering if his face was as bright red as it felt like it was. It felt like anyone within a fifty foot radius would be able to tell he was getting sexy messages from his girlfriend like it was written all over his face. Girlfriend? Huh.

**M** \- Danny?!

Sorry. Was trying to pick my jaw up off the floor– that was hot. You know I love your hands on me no matter where you put them. :)- **D**

Not exactly dirty talk, though. - **D**

**M** \- What do you mean?

Usually it means different words. - **D**

**M** \- Oh? How would you know that, Danny?

_Oh, shit._ He didn't intend to get into an area of foreplay where he'd have to explain how he came by his knowledge. Frantically, he stared at his phone trying to think of an appropriate response and came up with nothing that wouldn't dig him a deeper hole, now cursing the drugs that were dulling his thoughts. Somehow, Mindy seemed to anticipate his reaction.

**M** \- Ok, relax, I'm teasing. I can feel you stressing from here.

**M** \- In the locker room now. You should know my panties are super wet and so is my

... - **D**

Your what? - **D**

Min? - **D**

Hello? - **D**

"Dr. Castellano?" Danny looked up to see a Radiology technician standing in front of him with a wheelchair and an impatient expression. Absently, he wondered if the tech had called his name more than once. "I'm here to take you for an X-Ray."

"Yeah, hi. Right. Um." Danny scratched the back of his neck, trying to focus his thoughts. What could have possibly happened to distract Mindy from their conversation?

"You'll need to leave that here, sir," the tech said a bit sharply as he continued to clutch the phone. He frowned at her attitude.

"I won't be needing that," he groused, nodding at the wheelchair.

"Hospital policy, which I'm sure you already know," she said with a tight smile.

"Yeah… One second." The tech merely blinked at him as he turned back to his phone and attempted to type quickly.

Going for X-Ray now. Feel free to finish your thought. - **D**

"Okay, sorry." He swung his legs off the bed, catching the jacket before it slid to the floor. "Can I take this? It's a little… chilly in here." The tech eyed him a bit too shrewdly for his liking before nodding her assent. Too late, he realized there were beads of sweat on his brow that made his excuse less than credible. If he hadn't been so caught up in everything Mindy, he would have spent his time coming up with a better reason to take it or better yet, thinking of innocuous, unsexy things that would make his erection disappear. Like his mother, or the naked pictures of him hung for all to see in that gallery, or snow, or watching Mindy kiss Cliff in the snow… or watching Mindy kiss any other guy, really, or fight so hard to keep men who didn't fully appreciate her. _Ugh_.

Luckily, he had several minutes of travel time to meditate on these before he had to get out of the chair to actually take the X-Rays, enabling him to stand up without fear of making more of a spectacle of himself. Though, by the knowing smile the tech gave him when she handed the jacket back, he didn't think he was entirely successful at convincing her it was needed for warmth.

By the time he was being wheeled back to his bed in the ER, his stomach was feeling heavy and sour. If he didn't eat something soon, he'd be in danger of getting sick from the medication. Hopefully Mindy had gotten around whatever had interrupted her and would be waiting with his sandwich. He hated to further delay the rekindling their relationship because he waited too long to eat. _Difficult to feel like having sex after dry heaving, and all._

Thinking of this imminent rekindling stirred the feelings he'd just managed to suppress. Despite the sour stomach, he couldn't help but smile at the idea of being one step closer to being alone with Mindy. He could see his face reflected in the shiny elevator walls as they descended to the ER, and he was grinning like a loon. Try as he might to marshal expression, it was useless. The smile stayed glued in place as the tech wheeled him from the elevator and turned the corner leading to his bed.

As it came into view, however, the smile vanished, as did the beginnings of another erection concealed under the jacket he still held.

There was Mindy, wearing those blue-green scrubs he always wanted to tear off her, the dark-rimmed, sexy librarian glasses he loved, and an extremely apologetic expression similar to the one she wore the morning he had to leave her with Cliff at her apartment despite the fact that they'd been ready to have sex in an airplane bathroom only hours before. He could practically hear her thinking, _Danny, don't freak out. I am so, so sorry about this– There was nothing I could do!_ Now he understood why she'd had to stop sexting.

Because it wasn't just Mindy he saw. Peter, Morgan, and Tamra stood around her, looking at him with excitement. Morgan, inexplicably, was holding another bunch of helium balloons by their strings.

"There he is! Danny, you dog," Peter hollered across the distance. "Get over here so I can make fun of you guys!" Mindy rolled her eyes at him before returning Danny's confused gaze, grimacing as she stepped forward to meet him.

"I'll take it from here," she said to the tech in an overly bright tone. The tech shrugged with a good-natured smile, making Danny frown a second time. Mindy could bringing the kindness out of others in a way he never could; yet another reason he loved her.

Before he could say anything, she was leaning over him, her lips near his ear. "I totally forgot about Peter and Tamra being on call– didn't even think about it when I went up there… He saw me go in to the locker room and sent her in to see what was up. Then Morgan dropped by to keep Tamra company… I had to stop texting. I'm sorry, Danny. I tried to avoid this, I even told them all we were at your place watching a movie… If I'd just stayed down here, this wouldn't have happened. I'm so, so sorry…" Her eyes were panicked and her speech rapid, like she was thought he was going to be furious with her for circumstances out of her control.

"Hey, hey–" He pulled back to look at her, touching her shoulder. "Min, look at me." She met his eyes reluctantly, blinking fast as she pushed up her glasses. "It's okay. I don't mind."

"You… you don't?"

"No. Why would I? They may be annoying, but they're our friends. They just want us to be together, right?" It came out in a soft and rough, as he already distracted by the proximity of her face so close to his. The breath she exhaled smelled like minty toothpaste and he was taken with an urge to taste it on her.

"I– It's just, I know you were anxious to get home and," she licked her lips, making his breath hitch when he glimpsed her pink tongue, "you know… " Her eyes darted down to the jacket.

"I thought we agreed to just start saying sex?" This made the corners of her mouth twitch up slightly. "It's fine, Min. Really. I half expected this to happen. I mean, I still need to eat and we have to wait on the X-Ray, so... don't worry about it." She still looked uncertain and perplexed.

"So, you don't care that they… know?" Suddenly, she couldn't meet his gaze, and he realized why she was really asking.

Instantly, he flashed back to the morning in his apartment when he'd foolishly suggested they keep their relationship a secret because he didn't want other people, most especially their coworkers, making it weird. It was a suggestion he regretting ever making, as it likely single-handedly started the snowball effect that resulting in his idiocy and their break up.

In light of that, he didn't bother to remind her that the whole office had witnessed their confrontation earlier that morning (or yesterday morning, he realized, now that it was past midnight) and had played a role in making sure the two of them finally crossed paths. She needed reassurance that he was truly okay with their relationship being on display to others, even if it meant they would get teased mercilessly at times.

To answer her, he lifted his hands, one sliding to the back of her neck as the other caressed her jaw gently, thumb sweeping over the plane of her cheek as he pulled her toward him. He took her by surprise and for a second, her lips stiffened before yielding subtly against his. He kept his mouth pressed to hers soundly but chastely, maintaining the connection even as a chorus of catcalls, wolf whistles, and cheering rose up behind her.

"Oooh, yeah! That's what I'm talkin' about!" Morgan could be heard crowing triumphantly, followed by the unmistakable sound of he and Peter (most likely) high-fiving and one of them making obscene noises.

As if rewarding him for this calculated maneuver, Mindy tilted her head and recaptured his top lip, running her tongue along the inside edge, making him inhale sharply as his mouth was invaded by minty coolness. As much as he wanted to respond in kind, he knew for a fact he would never be able to fool the others about the jacket over his lap, so he squeezed the back of her neck lightly before pulling away.

"Let that answer your question," he said, loving the look on her face. It was an appealing combination of happiness, surprise and arousal with her lips open slightly and her eyes bright. She loosed a deep, appreciative sigh before doing that thing with her lips that immediately drove his thoughts back into the gutter.

"That was a good answer. Even if you didn't even try to beat box," she admitted.

"Well, the last time I tried that I bit my tongue," he said, grinning at the shared memory.

"Mm." Arousal was quickly outstripping the surprise. "You wanted to 'hit it' anyway, as I recall. Whatever that means."

"'Whatever that means'? I thought I made it pretty clear what it meant." She bit her lip, worrying it between her teeth as she shook her head at him. Then, appearing to have made a decision, she leaned close again, her lips brushing his ear this time and making him shiver.

"If it means you doing what you did to me that day in the hot pipe room, I'm all for it, Danny." He exhaled shakily, instantly hardening as he remembered fully what she was talking about.

As he'd started to kiss her that day, he decided that not only was she right about the nightgown being adorable on her, it made her look downright edible. Despite the fact that they'd agreed to try and limit themselves to first (and sometimes second) base at work, he was seized with the sudden desire to not only round all bases, but to also bring it clear on home. As such, he'd hiked up the white fabric, knelt in front of her, hitched her leg over his shoulder, tugged her panties aside and tasted her for the first time. He remembered looking up at her before that first lick to see her staring at him raptly, chest heaving as he leaned in and began his assault. Eventually, she put her hand over her mouth to muffle her cries. Before she could totally recover from the first climax, he stood and freed himself, grabbing a condom from their supply box of free handouts, rolling in on hurriedly while she was still quivering. Then he made her come again as he took her up against the shelving unit behind her, her hands clutching at him with white knuckles before he too fell apart.

That encounter ended up being one of the last times they had sex before the heartbreaking night of the impromptu party at her place.

"Mindy," he growled. "Just because I'm okay with them knowing about us doesn't mean I'm okay with them knowing I've got a hard-on for you right this second." The fact that he was trying to scold her was undercut by the urgent passion in his tone.

"Sorry… couldn't help myself," she muttered. "Just like you couldn't that day." She said the last quickly and then covered her lips with one finger to indicate she was shutting up. Danny glowered at her for a second before the effect was ruined by a pained laugh.

"Okay, you're gonna tell them I need to change back into my street clothes now, before I eat. If any of them notices… this," he look downward briefly, "I'm blaming it on you."

"You'd better blame it on me. If it's because of someone else, you're in trouble, buddy." Danny just looked at her with raised eyebrows, waiting. "Okay, okay… I'll tell them you're going to change first. Now let's get over there before they suspect something."

"You're gonna be the death of me, Min," he grumbled. She gloated beatifically.

"Ah, but what a way to go, Danny. What a way to go…" 

* * *

 

An hour later, Danny was being led groggily down the hallway to his apartment. Clutching exactly half the number of balloons Morgan brought to the hospital, Mindy grunted to him, struggling to hang on to the bundle of strings while balancing the majority of his weight. "Keys, Danny?"

"Hmm?" He blinked at her with half-lidded eyes, still mostly asleep after dozing off on her shoulder in the cab on the way over. His attention was sharpened somewhat when she pressed a brif kiss to the corner of his mouth with just a hint of tongue. "Hey, don't tease me. Come back here," he murmured. She obliged with another too short peck.

"Any more than that and you'll fall asleep on me," she laughed softly. "Where are your keys, Danny?" Sighing pathetically, he dug into his pocket and pulled them out for her.

Once they were inside, Mindy led him directly to the bedroom and sat him down on the bed, releasing the balloons to float to the ceiling. He heard her muttering quietly as she moved about the room, something about t-shirts and shoes. By the time she came back into view, she was leaning over where he had fallen onto his back, gazing at the colorful ovals above him.

"Think you can help me get you into your pajamas?" She asked, not bothering to hide her amusement.

"We don't need pajamas, Min," he mumbled. "I want to make love to you." At least that was what he attempted to say. He wasn't sure it came out clearly.

"Oh God, you are so unbelievably adorable right now. I think you're trying to talk about sex but I really can't tell. If I weren't about dead on my feet too, I would totally make a video of this while you're too incapacitated to stop me." He just blinked, frowning to communicate his displeasure with this idea.

After a bit of maneuvering, he managed to help her get off his clothing (in an unfortunately dispassionate way) and pulled on a t-shirt, shorts and socks. She left him briefly to do a version of her own nighttime routine in his bathroom but not before tucking him under the covers lovingly.

The last thing he knew was the sensation of her settling into bed next to him on the left side, where she belonged. He used his last ounce of energy to scoot closer and snake his arm around her waist, pressing his lips against her hair before falling into blissful sleep.


End file.
